What is the difference between "Performance", "Action Art", "Installation Art" and Video Art?

When the artist or the body of the artist is in focus, so the acting is part of the artwork, it's a performance. When the artist isn't visible but it's still about people and when it's that fast changing in time that you can see the "Beginning" and then "End", than it's "Action Art" (Happaning is kind of outsourced - not directed by a single artist but by many). Installation is when you can't see it "changing" in time, so it looks always the same, or can be at least restored, and when it's about objects.

However even still some installations like "My Breath rests here" ("Hier ruht mein Atem") have some performance character (at least in the creation phase), but than again not really, because than "the painting of a painting" could be also a performance, so it's more about the focus.

A recorded and shown as a video performance, without real life viewer and the interaction with the viewer like "The 30 € truth" or "Crying for this Video" for example is a video. (Definition by Bieniek)

Performance, District Armed Forces Office Berlin.

Dressed only in underpants and a bra, Sebastian Bieniek appeared in 1998 for the muster in a barracks in Berlin. There were knives stuck to his thighs and stomach, tied with tape. Around his head hung a real skull (he had borrowed it from the Charite), which was stuffed with minced meat, and in his hand he carried toy plastic swords. Again and again he pressed the button on the swords, which then made noises like: "He-man, He-man master of the universe".

Dressed like this, Sebastian Bieniek went to his draft at the district military replacement office in Berlin in 1999. When the military doctors on duty saw him like this, they had the room evacuated, called in some soldiers and asked him questions. He replied that he was the commander in chief of the armed forces in the Balkans (this was the time of the Balkan War) and that we should immediately go to the front to lead the troops there. After this answer he was banned from the district military replacement office and he was never called back.

Here are some photos that were taken in the artist's studio (at that time in the Kunsthaus Tacheles) immediately before the pattern.

"Medical Examination" ("Musterung"), Performance by Sebastian Bieniek (B1EN1EK) at the District Armed Forces Office Berlin, 1999.

The artist appeared in this disguise at the mustering in the Bundeswehr barracks and immediately wanted to go into the Yugoslavian war to command the armies.

Instead of his army being subordinate to him, he was, to his regret, retired and never asked to serve as a soldier again.

"Medical Examination" ("Musterung"), Performance by Sebastian Bieniek (B1EN1EK) at the District Armed Forces Office Berlin, 1999.

"Medical Examination" ("Musterung"), Performance by Sebastian Bieniek (B1EN1EK) at the District Armed Forces Office Berlin, 1999.

"Medical Examination" ("Musterung"), Performance by Sebastian Bieniek (B1EN1EK) at the District Armed Forces Office Berlin, 1999.

"Medical Examination" ("Musterung"), Performance by Sebastian Bieniek (B1EN1EK) at the District Armed Forces Office Berlin, 1999.

"Medical Examination" ("Musterung"), Performance by Sebastian Bieniek (B1EN1EK) at the District Armed Forces Office Berlin, 1999.

"Medical Examination" ("Musterung"), Performance by Sebastian Bieniek (B1EN1EK) at the District Armed Forces Office Berlin, 1999.