WHAT IS A PERFORMANCE ARTIST? (2005)

A short film compiled using references to the word (and the notion of) 'performance art/artist' in mainstream television and film.

NEW YORK STORIES (Scorsese, M. 1989)

Rosanna Arquette: "He left me, ok?"

Nick Nolte: "He left you? He left you? I mean who in their right mind would leave you? Who is this guy? I know him right?"

Rosanna Arquette: "Gregory Stark."

Nick Nolte: "That kid? The comedian?"

Rosanna Arquette: "A performance artist."

Nick Nolte: "A performance artist! What the hell is a performance artist? A person is a actor, a singer a dancer. Do call the person who picks up your garbage a sanitary engineer? A performance artist!

DAVID BLAINE

"I consider it a piece of performance art."

SEVEN (Fincher, D.)

"I thought he was one of those performance artists...you know the sort who pisses in a cup on stage and then drinks it. Performance art."

HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU

Clive James: "When you think about it, the actual burning building is itself a work of art."

Ian Hislop: "So the arsonist was doing...performance art."

SEINFELD (Cherones, T. 1991)

Jerry Seinfeld: "She's the performance artist, right?"

George Costanza: "Yeah, performance artist, she's a real performer, a real trooper...maybe for her next performance piece, she'll give birth on stage."

LEGAL EAGLES (Reitman, I. 1986)

Terence Stamp: "I have followed her career, but her sensibility in art doesn't interest me. She's um...she's a performance artist."

Robert Redford: "She's what?"

Debra Winger: "A performance artist."

SPACED

"Vulva. Had a multi media performance art partnership."

GHOSTWORLD (Zwigoff, T.)

"Now my own background is is video and...performance art."

SEX AND THE CITY

Sarah Jessica Parker: "Of all my odd dates, this was number one."