Auslander, P.
(2006) ‘The Performativity of Performance Documentation’
This reading mainly focuses on two examples given by the
author which are the documentation of Shoot (1971) by Chris Burden and Leap
into the Void (1960) by Yves Klein. The author explained in the reading how
Chris Burden was shot in his arm and that is what the documentation is showing,
where Yves Klein performance is fake , because the artist didn’t actually leap
in to the void from high, although the documentation suggests otherwise.
Auslander raises questions of what difference does the documentation of the
true and false makes. Why do we document fake as real? I think the fake has a
greater potential to be more interesting. Because there is an advantage of
being able to stage scenes, shoots. The real can only be captured as the way it
can be seen at a given moment.
Barthes, R., “Camera Lucida”.
The author claims that photography is closer to theatre. He
compares photography to the acting out on stage the Dead. However lifelike we
try to make the photograph it will only be our mythical denial of an apprehension
of death. A photograph is a kind of primitive theatre, a figuration of the
motionless and made up face beneath which we see the dead. The author introduces
surprises which photographers have to consider: is the object , situation, object
“rear”, to capture a moment within a
moment in a way that a painting cant recreate it and the ability to capture the
finest detail, to the point when during the photographing the artist was not
aware of. The author explains in detail what punctum and studium is. He
describes punctum as the hidden
detail, meaning of the photograph. Studium
is the details obvious, clear details that can be seen and understood by
the general public looking at the photograph. Barthes claims that the stadium
is also coded with a reason and meaning.
Phelan, P.
“Unmarked: the politics of performance”
This reading is about performance and the archival process.
The author claims that a theatre piece or performance to be successfully
rediscovered through archives need to be untraceable through moving image. By
that I mean that there is no video or audio of the performance itself. A
theatre piece performed today will never be the same as, a theatre piece
performed later this evening or, tomorrow, as the position of actors on stage
will be slightly different as the timing of the beginning and the end of the
piece may vary. The author claims that performance only life is in the present
and once it is recorded, documented it becomes something other than
performance. There is an example of an artist Sophie Calle who photographed the
galleries of Isabelle Steward Garden Museum in Boston where couple of paintings
have been stolen. Calle interviewed visitors and members of staff, asking them
to describe the stolen paintings. The confessions of individuals ware placed in
the space of the paintings. The artist suggested that the memories of the
painting constituted to the presence of the absent paintings. The description itself
doesn’t reproduce the object, it helps to restage and restate the effort to
remember what is lost. The author claims that the disappearance of the object
is fundamental to the performance. The reading also talks about the power of
eye contact. The author gives examples of plays where audience can’t make eye contact
with the actors. In that way he claims that the audience have to concentrate
harder to understand and feel the piece so they can remember it.
