The UCLAN workshop (Preston, UK)
5-9pm, Feb 5, 2007
Collaborators: Paul Craddock, JD Laing, Jon Aveyard, Paul Stapleton, Amy Rome and Tagny Duff.
This workshop consisted of the following:
1) a brief overview of my work, and the objectives and goal of the workshop,
2) a short presentation and discussion on examples of documentation strategies for live art works by artists/provokers including Tino Seghal, Tania Bruguera, Flashmobber Bill Wasik, Marina Abramovich, Operator of relations.
3) Questions to consider were discussed by the group.
4) Break.
5) “Speed archiving”: Each collaborator answered the questions in relation to the conservation of their own document three times, each with a different person and a different possible scenario for conservation.
6) Group conversation on one selected scenario (of the three) for presentation/conservation of each live art document brought to the workshop.
Overview: In Retrospect
There is never enough time. In fact, we ran out of time before we could discuss how to compile the manual with the content generated in the workshop. Never the less, the discussions and questions that arose were insightful and revealed the diverse scope of live art practices that each collaborator brought with them.
Paul C. was thinking through ways to present documentation of a performance for his master’s thesis without resorting to the traditional video or photographic documentation format. Amy, who is close to completing a PhD dissertation in the form of a CD-Rom (an extensive archive collection of early avant-garde Russian theatre and performance of the voice) also articulated concerns about the difficulties of experimenting with forms of documentation within academic parameters that continue to privilege the written word as source of knowledge. JD, who brings a nursing practice to her live artwork, presented the idea of a “discussion archive”- a performance and live document- for various communities traditionally not represented in live art practices. Jon, a sound artist and instructor at UCLAN, who is about to complete his PhD dissertation, voiced his concerns over maintaining the quality of sound works through carefully considered migration. Paul, research fellow at UCLAN and organizer of the “Convivencia” symposia, discussed issues relating to creating an online networking that could feature live art documents- including a video document of a collaborative site-specific performance work he did in Victoria, Canada last year.
Some key concerns that surfaced from this workshop related to the problematic of creating and presenting documents within the frame of the academy. Most notably, all participants acknowledged the problem of a lack of flexibility for practice-led research and experimental non-print media forms of knowledge-presentation in academic environments. The omission of practice based art education (e.g. studio arts, performing arts) on the topic of presentation and conservation of artwork through time was also mentioned. This included underdeveloped pedagogy on intellectual property rights, copyright and alternative modes of collaborative knowledge sharing (such as creative commons) as they apply to artists-scholars.
As we did not have time to compile the documents and content generated from the workshop, the blog will be a space for continuing to post notes and documents to be inserted in the manual.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Judy calling-will be mailing the presentation pertaining to my workshop contribution in the next few days. With regard to the blog, it would be interesting to get a different perspective from an arts health point of view from canadian students, especially since this is a relatively new field. I am also an avid watcher of new technology programmes and could envisage students of the future observing and listening to live performance on much more high tech, sophisticated and smaller mobile phones, mp3 players, ipods etc. (japan are much more advanced than we are) whilst archiving and conservation of material is essential for posterity, changes in the environment and the requirement to provide material for hard to reach groups (inclusivity is the current focus of attention)either due to age, illness or education are likely to continue to be a consideration and are likely to dictate to a certain degree how society accesses live art.
Hi Judy,
Yes, it would be great to have some other people on board who are interested in an arts health point of view. I will let know know if there are any such participants in the upcomign NSCAD workshop. However, I can recommend that you look into the work of Canadian artist Pam Hall who did a community arts project with doctors at memorial Hospital in Newfoundland. Canadian performance artist Margaret Dragu also does exciting community based performance work that might interest you. I can forward you more info, if you'd like.
As for the idea of new technologies like cell phones and mp3 players to archive live works ---- I agree. Mobile technologies may offer new potential ways of accessing performance works-- particularly for those who cannot attend events due to illness, distance, or financial realities. ( Let's face it--just having time to attend performance works (let alone pay attendance fees, if there are any) is an expense that most people cannot afford.)
But there are many how feel that new mobile technologies and their ability to mass distribute documentation of live events on the internet "robs" the artist and the "aura" and authenticity of performance/live art. I kid-you-not. During a round table discussion at the National Live Art Review in February, a number of people vocally opposed the use of camera phones in performances and began debate how to prohibit and control their use.
Post a Comment