The concept of the Incorruptible Flesh series took form a year before the three-therapy HIV drug treatment would give hope by halting the numbers of AIDS deaths. In a research residence at the CCA Glasgow in February 1996, Athey and collaborator, Lawrence Steger studied the lives of saints, the relics and in particular, the display of the ‘incorruptible’ bodies, most of which are wax sculptures with a corpse inside. Applying the status of ‘incorruptible’ upon their own dying HIV+ bodies, Athey and Steger wove solo actions into interactions – including “The Trojan Whore” which Athey performed at the memorials for Leigh Bowery in 1998. The final action in the piece contained the image of the living corpse on display: Athey laid out on a simple plank, tended to by Steger (with monstrous special affects makeup suggesting decomposing). The live AIDS body, on-display, anointed (greased), bathed in golden light marked the glorification of the live AIDS body, which in future performances in the series,

“Dissociative Sparkle” and “Perpetual Wound” became the more esoteric post-AIDS body. Lawrence Steger died in February 1999. “Dissociative Sparkle”was performed in February 2006, exactly 10 years later, for the National Review of Live Art in Glasgow and was later repeated at Artists Space in NYC . Athey presented his first durational piece - a 6 hour solo performance. Honouring the anniversary of his collaboration with/and the loss of Steger, Athey used the static, martyred image of his body, suffering on a rack. The audience were allowed to take the role of Steger and anoint Athey's body in grease. As in “The Trojan Whore”, the body was enhanced; tortured, but not vulnerable. Invaded by hooks, bat and rack, his skin was bronzed and shining, genitals inflated to grotesque size with medical saline.

For “Perpetual Wound”, 2007, Athey worked in collaboration with a younger artist, Dominic Johnson, and focused on this trans-generational relationship mythologically, characterizing Sophocles' pairing of Philoctetes and Neoptolemus. Philoctetes (Athey), in exile for possessing a stinking weeping wound that would not heal, was seduced by Neoptolemus (Johnson) into returning to battle and directions to receive healing. This reality comes to fruition during the start of a dance, wherein a sheet of glass on a stand is used as a prophalaxis, protecting the younger man from the shared wound. The fourth installation in the Incorruptible Flesh series, “Messianic Remains”, is a solo performance commissioned by Performance Studies international, debuting at Stanford University in June 2013. Returning to the laid-in-state-sexualized corpse scene presented as a static image in [Dissociative Sparkle], the messianic impulse/prophecy is activated. Dressed in vestmental finery, a funeral procession draws its pulse from Genet's Our Lady of the Flowers, and Athey arises from the viewing into a walking meditation. As in earlier works in the series, Athey rides the grandiose myth of enlightenment that only the face of death may reveal.

This new work suggests thinking about the life of women in said period of their life and what it implies for women in our contemporary society. The project shows the demonized “horrors” of the ephemeral passing of time and the closeness of death and how the hopelessness of the human physical state in face of the physical deterioration is powerfully capitalized by a capitalist system that “sells” youth and beauty. Even if this issue also affects men, in women it is substantially more troublesome. Trying to still look young and not to show age, it supports the standardization of imposed beauty ideals, creating bizarre models and occasionally putting lives at risk.

"I devote myself to transgress limits. I dig into human behavior. I disrupt accepted reality, absurd as the one I situationate. I’m a human reaction voracious hunter, consumer and provocateur. The human being wants to feel. I make them feel deeply. I show the horrors of hidden lies. My field is any space: the street, public places, wherever there are people with no references of my art work. I practice a constant situationism, disrupting daily routine. When facing the inability of thinking how to react, the most authentic truth is revealed. I take on sex topics because the world still shivers to them. Sex is good bait for my hunt. I break the conventional woman scheme, and so answers I store as a collector begin to appear. Independent to my consciousness, my mind works with these answers, and suddenly gives me an idea: The Epiphany, which I transform into a performance. My aesthetic is grotesque, in search of severity. I was born a seductive Nabokovkian “Lolita”. I lived censorship, scolding, fear and guilt, typical of a repressive society. Sex is a universal Achilles’ heel."

From 1992 to date, she has been involved in the current international art circuit. She began her performance career reading her porn-erotic texts. Since then, she focuses her artistic proposal in criticizing repressive burdens experienced by women. Boliver has made performances in Mexico and has taken important part in many performance festivals in Europe, Asia, North and South America. From 1994 to 2007 she worked in various theater projects, performances and contemporary art under the guidance of the prominent Mexican playwright Juan Jose Gurrola.

My work focuses on the body in actions. In these actions, mental and physical planes of existence are created, establishing autonomy within the limits of my endurance, physical movement, and structure. With my body, I alter and construct my vessel of experience, intrinsically connecting and emptying myself to a singular moment and time. During these moments I can then seek to communicate, focusing on the energy exchanged between the viewer and myself.

My practice is two-fold; live public actions performed for an audience and private actions performed for the camera. Both practices operate in complimentary forces, with actions relating in physical, aesthetic, and conceptual intensity.

It is through my practice of actions that I look to establish a new direction for performance practice, one that provides a maximum perception of the senses through the complete conception of live and video elements.

PETER DOBILL: Born in New Zealand, Peter Dobill is a Brooklyn, NY based artist. He
received his BFA from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in
2004 in addition to receiving the 2008-2009 Franklin Furnace Fund for
Performance Art Grant.

Dobill co-founded and curated the annual Maximum Perception
Performance Festival in Brooklyn, NY. He has performed and exhibited
in galleries/venues including Exit Art, NY, NY; Momenta Art, Brooklyn,
NY, Meme Gallery, Cambridge, MA, English Kills Art Gallery, Brooklyn,
NY, NurtureArt, Brooklyn, NY; Open Realization Contemporary Art
Gallery, Beijing, China, and Rockefeller University, NY, NY.

Action Poetry is unusual activity made up from the unsual world. It could be read as multi-interpretable text. Thereby, it takes the risk of becoming "something" or "nothing at all" For me performance art is a, 'Action Poetry', "can be viewed as one of contemporary arts belonging to non-representational genre. It does not only come up from subjective conciousness as ideological response towards socio-cultural problems, but also a manifestation of the artist's interior self-exploration

W Christiawan is a Lecturer in the Theater Departement, Sekolah Tinggi Seni Indonesia (STSI) and Artistic Director of the Asbestos Art Space in Bandung, Indonesia

PhD in Culture Studies at the University of Padjadjaran Bandung, research on performance art in Indonesia (on going)

W Christiawan has performed in many cities in Indonesia, Australia, Thailand, Singapore, Japan and Europe

CLIMATE CHANGE is real. The earth is reacting and everything is different. Performance Art has become an uncontrollable force of change in the community of artists in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn International Performance Art Festival is the tip of the melting iceberg. Cllmate Change at Grace Exhibition Space exists to reflect the heat.