Melanie Manchot

After my last critique shane suggested I look at her series Gestures of Demarcation, where she goes around and asks random people to pull the skin on her upper body as far as they can, testing the limits of her body while also recording the  act.
 

This series, as well as the other he reccomended
http://www.melaniemanchot.net/category/fontainebleau/
Where she has two women in a bathtub recreate this image from the School of Fontainebleau 
but then encourages the woman to find other gestures touches while remaining in the bathtub
resulting in images that are pretty strange. It is really interesting to see what kind of moments happen between the women, especially when they aren't given instruction on how to pose.
 I think what really has me interested in Melanie's work is the performative and participatory aspects. In a lot of her work she is documenting an act, sometimes its one that is more natural, such as a kiss, and other times it's more composed. It's interesting to see the way her participants react to her instructions, and I would like to try and get more involved with people in this way.