Digging into the Archive III.

Performance is a concept is a document is a performance

SA, 26 06 2021, 11 am – 3 pm
Concept: Performatorium (Olivia Jaques and Marlies Surtmann)

In this third episode of the artistic research project on archiving of performance art, we refer exemplarily to the performance Wenn es eine andere Möglichkeit gäbe by Julia Marx (H13 Lower Austria Prize for Performance, September 2015).

By Digging into the Archive, we want to 'exhume' a performance from the archive of Kunstraum Niederoesterreich and reiterate it with the help of a systematic analysis of performance documents. The project demands the end of contemplation: not a re-enactment, but a forensic composition of the traces, a physical recreation of a past event. For this, we use a ‘home made’ method, based on Diana Taylor's concept of the scenario. This forms a framework that allows for multi-perspective interpretations and shifts in time, place and culture; a formalistic structure that makes equal use of the modes of tradition.

On a practical level, we address the following questions: What can be experienced or understood through the process of repeating? What kind of updates or reinterpretations take place? What does this change of perspective imply for a feminist perspective on history, but also for an everyday dealing with past events? The focus shifts from the question of accurate and complete transmission to the question of what and how we learn from past (performance) events for a recent understanding of society and culture.

Artists and those interested in performance art are invited to participate in this experiment. The project is embedded in a research project for archiving performance art. By participating in the workshop, the participant agrees that recordings and illustrations of the workshop, as well as illustrations of any (artistic) results within the research project "Archiving Performance Art? On the Archiving, Transmission and Mediation of an Art Form in Motion"  are subject to CC BY NC regulations and may be published and used for further research.

Due to the measures taken to contain the spread of COVID-19, the number of participants is limited to 10 persons.  Please register at anmeldung@kunstraum.net with the subject line "Digging into the Archive III".

For our placement offers, the "3-G rule" (tested, vaccinated, recovered) currently applies. This means that you must show proof of a negative test result, a completed vaccination or confirmation of a survived COVID-19 infection.