Beyond Pollock: on visual art objects as non-traditional forms of performance document

Abstract

This article focuses on the relationship between performance documents and visual art objects in response to a philosophical position concerning documentation forms held by Philip Auslander. By addressing visual art forms over what may be argued as modern technological approaches to documenting performance – digital video-recording and still photography – this article reports on a selection of practice-based research projects within the canon of Performance Art that use non-traditional forms of performance documentation to propose that bringing together visual art and performance-related discourses is helpful in articulating the document. Rather than focusing on a discussion concerning a politics of form connected to the document in terms of representation and ideas surrounding ‘truth’ (i.e. how different forms of document may be hierarchically placed in their attempt to represent an action that is now absent), the article concentrates on the act of producing documentation as a process that is both liminal and embodied. Addressing and then departing from earlier research by the author that prioritizes different levels of witness via the document, the main research projects address first-hand witness to gain a better understanding of how the act of documentation can be viewed as a performative process and an opportunity for social communication. Whereas the discourse connecting visual art objects with philosophies regarding the performance document remains under-explored, the article can be read as a benchmark for critical engagement in its attempt to combine performance and visual art-related concerns into two idiosyncratic but not highly disparate forms of creative practice.