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Notes 1.
In the context of multimedia installations, for instance, physical challenges
are posed by the transience of technologies. Factory-made products as
information carriers and playback equipment are subject to the competitive
situation of the market. New technologies succeed each other at a high speed,
and the production of older “formats” and playback equipment is often
discontinued. 2. The notion of “media art” has frequently been criticized, as it is quite broad as a category and, at the same time, seems to implicitly affirm the classical division between temporal arts (theatre) and classical, a-temporal art forms (painting). Moreover, it is questionable whether the term “media art” is still applicable in the “age of the post-medium condition” (a notion coined by Rosalind Krauss in 1999). However, this term will be used in this article to describe art that is time-based, mass-media-related and intrinsically reproducible without claiming “traditional” art forms to be necessarily a-temporal, static and removed from the realm of the popular media. The possible inaccuracy of the terminology is taken for granted, as it is considered a chance to re-evaluate contemporary art forms under changed conditions. Last but not least, it acknowledges that every work of art is medium-bound in the broadest sense of the word, without denying the possibility of one single work including different media and materials. 3.
In other works like Ritual (1997) and Exotic Exercise (2006), he actually
uses found-footage from television, recycled images of other people’s bodies. 4.Installations
are often classified as “performative” because they are supposed to be unique
in the sense of an unrepeatable and fundamentally unrepresentable event, a
view that is derived from a certain understanding of what a “performance”
ought to be. From this specific perspective, this absolute uniqueness and
unrepeatability of what happens is one of the most important features of an
artistic event that could be qualified as a “performance”. See e.g. Phelan,
Peggy. Unmarked: The Politics of Performance. London etc.: Routledge, 1993,
and Fischer-Lichte, Erika. Ästhetik des Performativen. Frankfurt/Main:
Suhrkamp, 2004. 5.
See e.g. Phelan 1993: 146 ff. and, in other respects, see also Reason,
Matthew. “Archive or Memory? The Detritus of Live Performance.” New Theatre
Quaterly, vol.19, no. 1 (February 2003): 82-89. 6.
See Jones, Amelia. “’Presence’ in Absentia: Experienceing Performance as
Documentation.” Art Journal, vol. 56, no. 4 (1997): 16. Quoted in: Auslander,
Philip. “The Performativity of Performance Documentation.” PAJ, vol. 84
(2006): 1-10. 7.
Auslander 2006: 2 8.
In his book How to Do Things with Words (1962), in which he develops his
well-known speech-act theory, Austin describes the phenomenon of performative
utterances that actually constitute what they state. (The notorious example
is a sentence used in marriage ceremonies: “I take this man as my lawfully
wedded husband.”) ; Austin, J.L. How to Do Things with Words. 2nd edition.
Oxford: Clarendon, (1962) 1975. 9.
Auslander 2006: 5. 10.
Cf. Phelan 1993: 146. 11.
Derrida, Jacques. “Signature Event Context.” (1972) In: Ibidem. Limited Inc.
Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1988: 1-24. 12.
See also Dressler, Iris. “Intimate video.” In: Peter Bogers: Shared Moments.
[exh.cat.] Pittburgh: Wood Street Galleries, 2002: 8-25. 13.
There even is a different version of this photograph that reveals even more,
including a monitor next to the bathtub, showing the image of the mouth,
which can normally be seen inside the glass case. According to the artist,
the monitor was included in the performance setting because it provided him
with the possibility to check on the image during the process of recording.
The photograph was always meant to be part of the installation. 14.
Something similar applies to works like Portret and Fingers (1992), in which
the image has to remain recognizable as the product of electrons being shot
through a cathode ray tube, which lays bare inside the glass case. In this
context, one could possibly say that in this way the image is revealed to be
a process, the movements on the screen corresponding to the movement of
electrons that hit its surface. Exposing technology is a central strategy of
these works. 15.
Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.”
(1935/36) in: Idem. Illuminations. Edited and with an introduction by Hannah
Arendt. London: Pimlico, 1999: 211-244 (218). For the German version, see
Benjamin, Walter. “Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen
Reproduzierbarkeit.” (1935/36) In: Idem. Illuminationen. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp,
1961: 148-184 (156). 16. A fitting description of this situation can be found in de Journal of the American Institute for Conservation: “(…) because of the performance aspect of many installations, conservators working with this medium will need to look beyond the material and consider that the “heart” of a work might lie primarily in its less tangible qualities. Preserving for the future something that is above all an experience might require conservators to take a more flexible view of what may or may not be changed about a work, challenging conventional notions of accuracy and authenticity.”; Real, William A. “Toward Guidelines for Practice in Preservation and Documentation of Technology-Based Installation Art.” Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, vol. 40 (Fall/Winter 2001), no. 3: 226. 17. In the Netherlands, the decision making model developed by the Foundation for the Preservation of Modern Art (Stichting Behoud Moderne kunst) is often used as a guideline. In this context, information on the significance of the technology used, the manner of presentation and the intentions of the artist is considered crucial to the preservation of media art. However, the development of methodology and instruments for the acquisition, documentation and distribution of such information is still at a relatively early stage. To gain more insight into problems surrounding the presentation and documentation of multimedia installations, the Netherlands Media Art Institute has initiated research and case studies on the international state of affairs and participates in international research projects like the EU-funded Inside Installations, on which a number of prestigious European art institutions collaborate. The objectives of the studies included finding an answer to the following more general questions: What aspects play a role in the preservation and re-installation of multimedia installations? What are the criteria for preservation and re-installation? What aesthetic and technical elements are essential, and should be preserved in order to ensure that the integrity and significance of the work remain intact during future presentations? How can installations be registered and documented? What technical know-how is required to ensure the possibility of future presentations of these installations? 18.
For other possible behaviours, see e.g. Depocas, Alain, Ippolito, Jon and
Jones, Caitlin, eds. Permanence Through Change: The Variable Media Approach.
New York: Salomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Montreal: Daniel Langlois
Foundation, 2003. See also http://variablemedia.net. 19.
The term “medium-bound” is supposed to indicate that the work is not
necessarily “medium-specific” in the sense of something that can only be
understood in relation with a specific medium that is explored in and by it,
but rather implies that the work is always bound to a situation that is
co-determined by particular media without being confined to it. That is,
every work is dependent on media and can never be experienced or thought of
as independent from any medium even in the age of the “post-medium
condition”. 20.
Halyes, Katherine. How We Became Post-Human: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics,
Literature and Informatics. Chicago etc.: University of Chicago Press, 1999. 21.
Consequently, one of the main questions in preserving media art is whether it
is possible to separate the content from the soft- and hardware. Even on a
pratical level, it often seems that content and context are inseparable. 22.
“Migration” is the upgrading of equipment and source material, whereas the
term “emulation” is the imitation of the original look of a piece by totally
different means. For more information see “strategies” on
http://variablemedia.net. 23.
Here one can see the difference between the works that have to be understood
in terms of a series and works that are more confined to a relatively stable
situation. 24.
This part is frequently referred to as Video Violence, a work that can also
be shown on its own. 25.
Cf. Ex, Nicole. Zo goed als oud: De achterkant van het restaureren.
Amsterdam: Amber, 1993: 103 and passim. 26.
In an interview conducted in the context of preservation research, Bogers
indicates that a work never dies, even when preserved in a specific form
without developing further, since the experience one can have when watching
it is what keeps the work alive. 27.
Nevertheless, the year of the first presentation is often the date accepted
for the work’s initial production. This fixation, however, has to remain
necessarily problematic as an Archimedean point of reference for future
presentations. 28.
For the artist’s statement, see
http://www.kunstoplocatie.nl/Peter_Boogers.htm [translation: JS]. 29.
However, Peter Bogers does not seem to problematize the idea of unification,
for him, it seems to constitute the chance of communication beyond
difference. So, the incorporation of difference frequently citicized by
critical thinkers around the globe (reflected by the notion of unimedia) does
not appear as a problem to Bogers, as it seems. |
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ON THE PERFORMATIVITY OF DOCUMENTATION AND PRESERVATION
OF VIDEO INSTALLATIONS |