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Hi Laura,
I was thinking more about your ideas regarding
re-performing, and what the "big deal" is for
Abramovic to re-perform other peoples' work, and how
this might be the same as or different than
re-performing "real" events or experiences such as
the traumatic events/experiences of 9-11.
First of all, I was just going to say that in
writing, there is more than mere "transcription"
that can be achieved by engaging with a previous
text. There are also "parodies," lines of literary
"influence" and "authority" that can be traced
within various canons, and there is that special
arena called "plagiarism."
But secondly, I don't know if it's true anymore that
the "singular" or ephemeral is what's valued in the
realm of performance. I think artists and theorists
alike have increasingly been drawn to the value of
exploring repetition, as well as "multiple
directions of reference that are both citational
(referencing backwards) and invocational (calling
forward)," readable as what Rebecca Schneider has
recently described as "a response to a call and a
call for response" (Performing Art's Histories, 32).
In short, I think people are starting to question
the value of viewing "solo" performance *as* solo,
as solely linked to the "identity" of the performer,
or to their individual consciousness. People are
starting to look for and at the other influences,
voices, historical contexts, etc... that reverberate
within a "solo" piece in marked and/or unmarked ways.
Actually, Schneider's essay is a fascinating one
through which to consider Skarbakka's jump, because
she discusses a particular performance piece, Yves
Klein's SAUT DANS LE VIDE (LEAP INTO THE VOID),
which he did in Paris as a bid for "art world
domination," seeking global recognition for his own
artistic aesthetic/color. Anyhow, he first performed
the leap by jumping off a "provincial, two-story
building" (30) on Jan. 12 1960, in front of two
witnesses. But one of the witnesses didn't show up,
and the other was a woman (I don't know if this
matters, but maybe she wasn't a good enough witness
for him, so he decided to do it again and photograph
it). But he had hurt himself leaping the first time
around, so this time he only wanted "to *re-enact*
the real leap for the camera, not make the real leap
agin" (30). Thus, as Schneider comically puts it,
"For the October 1960 capturing of the January 1960
event, he had a tarpulin held by 12 judokas from a
judo club across the street to catch him" (30).
Importantly, she also points out that "In this way
the staging was projected both toward a future (an
audience to witness the photograph as evidence) and
in reference to a past (an event that had already
taken place and had even already been witnessed as
taking place" (30).
I think it is fascinating that Skarbakka's piece can
no longer be divorced in my mind from Yves Klein's
LEAP INTO THE VOID anymore than it can be divorced
from the photograph Phelan showed in Singapore of
FALLING MAN, any more than it can be divorced from
my memories of 9-11, and the horrific footage I also
saw on television of people jumping. Of all the 9-11
details, that is really the only one I ever had
nightmares about, and I think there is something
"uncanny" about that image, in the sense that when
you're dreaming, you sometimes wake up with a
shudder from dreams in which you are falling.
Anyhow, I don;t know if Skarbakka is aware of Yves
Klein's LEAP, or FALLING MAN, or of the genre of
"re-performance," but that multi-directional history
of other jumpers and comic/tragic contexts is what
makes his piece interesting to me. In a kind of
funny way, he *is* like Yves Klein, the guy who
didn't want to hurt himself so he had a tarpulin
placed underneath him, but still failed in his bid
for "art world domination" because Jackson Pollack
and American performance scene soon stepped in and
took that role.
But then, despite all these histories and webs of
rreference, there *is*, as you point out, the desire
to experience the "leap" for yourself. What makes
Abramovic want to re-do those specific pieces for
herself: because they deeply influenced her own
work, as she explained at the symposium. She only
*heard* about some of these pieces while still
living in Belgrade, and could not *see* any
documentation of them until she moved to the States.
They were forbidden and mysterious, and mythical,
and part rumour/part truth, only she didn't know
what part was rumour and what part was truth. So
these performances are "charged" with memory and
desire and possibility for her, I think, and that is
probably what motivates her to repeat them. Though
who knows what motivates people to repeat certain
acts... I think you sometimes figure out why you do
it *as* you do it, or after you do it and it has
gone dreadfully right, or marvellously wrong :)
Maybe Skarbakka will have a better sense in a few
weeks of why he did what he did, and will be able to
explain that more fully to his dissenters?
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