Context and performance

The relationship between film and performance has always existed, films often have performers in them, whilst Performance artists often film their performances. On the course I am studying the most common way for a performance artist to document their work is through video, and by the end of the course in order to be assessed the performance artist will usually perform and have a DVD of their other performances and practices on display separately. The relationship between performance and film is one which has interested me since I began performing. My very first performance was not filmed or documented in any way other than in my own writing, my later work was filmed and photographed with minimal editing or manipulation, I attempted to show what the camera had captured.

Following my research into Heidegger's theory of Being which places Being as a situation always existing within a surrounding context, I view performance and film from the same stand point. No film or film maker can ever be completely neutral to the situation being filmed. I enjoyed films which made light of this point or admitted their own artifice. I noticed some performances ignored the presence of documentation and rely heavily upon documentation for advertisement and self-promotion. The audience appeared to do the same, ignoring the camera as having any significance to the works meaning, however they did not ignore it's presence as a camera, avoiding standing in it's way or standing in shot, and when in shot being noticeably self conscious of their own actions and conversation. I came across my own issues with documentation in my performances where I emptied a room, and in order for the room to be empty needed to move the camera, the problem with moving the camera out of the room is that of course without the camera there is no documentation which is required if you are performing on an art course where lecturers and examiners need to see evidence of your work. As well as this the integrity of the work would be compromised if the camera was allowed to remain within the room, treated as a transparent object.

It is important that the context in which an artwork exists is understood and taken note of. In the case of my work the context of the location in which my work is performed and my vocation as a fine art student creates a context for the artwork. My actions have focused upon the preparatory actions for performance, mainly cleaning the room I use to restore it's white cube status, a process which is specific to my university's M.A.P department's etiquette and practice. I find that actions which have a clear aim tend to be actions which are ubiquitous such as cleaning a room. A person tends to act in a certain way within the available script of the current social parameters they find them self in. In other words one only does what one does, so actions which have a practical aim seem to work very well. A practical and 'regular' action placed at the start of a perform seems too ease people into the work, adjusting the lens and creating a narrative and context which is assessable by the audience and which set up the next actions which may not be so recognizable or understandable. In my Cleaning performances the starting action is reflected by the ending action which is also to clean the room, emphasizing the temporality of the work and erasing it's own trace until all that is left of the work is a clean room which as a trace is indistinguishable from the white cube room. Recently I have been developing ideas of performing for film, and displaying the films as the only way for an audience to view the actions as the performances will have no audience. The film displaces the work in space and time allowing the viewer to engage with an 'after image' of the work, degraded and removed from reality into an electronic retrospective.

Film and performance are themselves glimpses into a persons life or soul. I have already in a previous post discussed John Ford's film 'The Searchers' and the bracketing scenes similar to those used in Orson Well's 'Citizen Kane'. My cleaning actions are a parallel to these, creating a clear 'begging' and 'end' to the audiences experience of the performance although the performance itself has been going on before and continues after. The Searchers is most relevant for these scenes because of the search that the main character embarks upon and the search which continues after the end of the film. I wanted my performance to continue, as the feeling and subject it is based upon does, allowing the audience a small glimpse into a personal journey.