dear all:
Liza Swaving's commentary (and example for an analogy to internet art)
on the lamak, collected by an ethnographic museum as if in "an act
against the object’s integrity and agency" was fascinating, and her
particular suggestions on reperformance deserve a lot more discussion
(I'm in two minds about the possibility of reperformance, need to
think more about this in regard to the digital). But is the example,
to begin with, not an example drawn from ritual or ceremonial cultural
practices?
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These lamak are made from perishable organic materials that
deteriorate after a period of time. It is precisely because of their
ephemeral nature that these objects contribute to the completion of
rituals that represent and produce transition, continuity and renewal.
They have to be made, performed, destructed and re-made again. Their
ephemerality contributes to their agency
>>
The analogy to internet art as perishable or ephemeral media-art-form
is a very interesting one of course; in that sense "the idea of
ephemerality as part of the agency of an object" would be directly
applicable to digital art works, even if perhaps some coders or
netartists may have imagined the temporalities to be longer lasting,
reproducible and thus collectible?
The analogy to performance art, say live art or fluxus art from the
60s and 70s, may not work in the same way, as I cannot imagine
<<
This is my understanding of the re-performance of a score: by bringing
something of yourself to it, you contribute to keeping it alive
>>
(if you look at examples) that reperformances of Yoko Ono's 'Cut
Piece' or Marina Abramovic's durational early works with Ulay (by
young students, as it was done I believe for Abramovic's MoMA show or
some show in recent years where her early pieces were "redone") have
the same, or any, artistic integrity or agency. Well to me they were
pointless, and had no affect.
My reaction may be based on my bias, my understanding that these
earlier action-events were precisely not scores, or Partituren (with
the musical associations attached, that they can be re-interpreted or,
to use Liza's term, renegotiated) but were done to perish. This may
not be true in base of some Ono's instructional pieces.
Draw a window on the wall
To remind you of the sun....
(The Room Without a Window I)
Performance art & such conceptual art always already are produced as
"ethnographic fragment." Relational social works (network art) I
think act the same way; telematic performance acts the same way; the
Makrolab acted the same way.
When internet art is considered to be a cultural practice ('cultural
objects are part of social networks'), then yes of course we may need
to 'bring' something of ourselves to it, and contribute to keeping it
alive, as Liza suggests, but what is it exactly that I would (now)
bring, say, to the "Makrolab," if a digital / archived version (as a
"choreographic object") existed of its networked & communicational
political activities, its meandering geo/physical relocations? its
"autonomy" (it was built to subsist & produce its own energy)? Is it
actually possible (the comparison between the science-based and
subversive complexity of Makrolab, and the perishable ceremonial
character of the lamak, here breaks down) to keep artistic
immaterialities (and their complex physical-infrastructural-technical
apparatuses) alive except through per-versions?
Johannes Birringer
AlienNation Co.
Houston, TX
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