Performance Art is one of those areas of the art world that you either like or dislike. As for myself, the more zany and out of this world the more I am intrigued to watch. But I know for those uninitiated Performance Art can look like just a bunch of crazy people acting nuts. However, it is a medium of art that is so close to the human experience, that a painting or sculpture just can't radiate.

The Tate's glossery page describes the medium like this:
 

Art in which the medium is the artist's own body and the artwork takes the form of actions performed by the artist.

With that said let's begin our journey into a Seoul subway ride that was anything but normal. Around 1pm the artists started to show up and eventually were a sizable group.

The artist, Jin Sup Yoon, engaged in the experience by drawing pictures throughout the event.

Our train arrived and we sheepishly stepped into the train car. Actually, this was the moment I was most anxious for. How were a group of performance artists going to deal with the dilemma of a train full of unsuspecting people? But I knew one of the best traits of this art form is it's interaction with the audience. In this respect, I was full of excitement at the same time.
 

The artists above (from left) Gwen Atkinson, Brooke Carlson and Bianca Turalija, got the groove going on the train by letting the deep notes of the saxophone get everyone's attention. While he played Gwen spoke a poem in English, and when finished Bianca translated it into Korean.

While this was happening the artist, Mrat Lunn Htwann, was setting up his materials for his performance.

Immediately, the attention was on him as he set up slippers, a black furry swath on the subway chair and rope hung in the style of a noose.
 

During Mrat's set up / performance the sound artist, Sato Yukie was playing his guitar. I think the element of sound made by his guitar gave a nice narrative to what was happening. In some ways I think it helped soothe whatever nervous feelings people were having.
 

Mrat's performance was kicking off and soon he was found wielding an iron and interacting with the audience, by "ironing" them. It made for a lot of giggling on the train.

When people would walk away from this confrontation he went with this energy and followed them. The following picture shows him going after one girl who was quite surprised.
 

 I was actually amazed and impressed that the following two passengers didn't flip out and go off on tangents, considering the kind of "face value" culture there is in Korea.

 

When James Topple and Colin Riddle moved to Korea, they had an idea to investigate how people have adapted
to the economic and social changes that have taken place over the past decades.
They would do it through the eyes of “Tiger and Bear,” important creatures in Korea’s mythology.
The results are fresh interpretations of modern-day Korea.” -The Korea Herald

His performance included walking around the train car and passing out a paper that had both Korean and English on it. Another theme he used was the image of many phallic shapes on his shirt and ones drawn on his body, which I am guessing relates to a theme in their 2D artwork.

At this point "Tiger" was doing his thing along with Mrat and then the artist, Park Juyoung started hers.

Her performance consisted of walking up the aisle of the train car, while pleasant music was played via a recorder dangling around her neck and paintings displayed in her hands. It is my interpretation that she was commenting on the same actions made by disabled people who beg on the train. Note: she is deaf. Although considerably more mellow than the other performances I found hers quite evocative.

Meanwhile, during all this Eric Scott Nelson was at the front of the train engaged in his own performance. His consisted of laying out cat food in a message in Korean.

However, by the time I was aware of his performance I was too late. As the officials on the train were quite upset with it and asked him to clean up. His message reflected an event that happened earlier, which was his cat had gotten run over. The message was meant to say thank you to those riding the subway as that prevents cats from getting run over, but he didn't get the chance to finish writing it.

At this point the artists gathered their things and met up with Eric. We were getting closer to Incheon and less people were on the train. After some time the artist, An Jung began her performance.

In this performance she used a food directory book as her material. In it were white stickers that she peeled of and placed in her mouth. Then she proceeded to peel out pages and pin and tape them to her head.

It was a quiet and thoughtful performance that properly ended the trip to Incheon. Afterwards, we all grabbed a bite to eat and put fuel back in our artist bodies.

The PAISC event was definitely something I will always remember, as it was my first time seeing performance art in such a grand manner. I look forward to making the video and showing you guys what it sounded and looked like.

I hope this has sparked some interest in Performance Art and shows just how creative and dedicated artists of this medium can be.