MTAA's One Year Performance (aka samHsiehUpdate)

Last week I posted about Tehching "Sam" Hsieh's one year performances. The art collaborative MTAA did a web-based update of Hsieh's first performance ("The Cage Piece," 1978-1979). That performance consisted of Hsieh living in a cage he built in his Tribeca loft. He stayed in the cage for a year without reading, writing, watching tv, talking, etc. His meals were delivered and his excrement was taken out in a bucket. He had occasional (once or twice a month) scheduled days were the public could come and view the performance.

MTAA's introduction to their 1 year performance video commissioned & hosted by Turbulence.org:

We, M.River & T.Whid, ask that you view a 1 year performance video, to begin today, March 26, 2008.

We shall seal images of ourselves in images of our studio, seemingly in solitary confinement inside seemingly identical images of cell-like rooms measuring 10ft x 10ft x 10ft.

We seemingly shall not converse, listen to the radio or watch television, until -- after you have viewed them for one year -- we unseal our images.

We shall appear to have food every day.

Our friend the web site, www.turbulence.org, will facilitate this piece by serving our images to the World Wide Web.

Please login (upper right) to begin viewing.

MTAA's performance is a reversal... the artists are on a looped video that the viewer is asked to watch for a year. The project's introduction page has a "leader board" of top viewers:

1. sashamaslansky
   310 days, 12h 43m 0s
2. register
   294 days, 14h 26m 0s
3. sheeppower
   285 days, 22h 13m 0s
4. endtime34
   251 days, 6h 24m 0s
5. rickerby
   241 days, 0h 7m 0s

People who watch for an entire year receive a reward of the data associated with the project:

Once the piece is viewed for one year, you the viewer are eligible to receive a unique collection of "art data" contained in 2 separate XML documents. At this point you the viewer becomes you the collector.