Clean Up on Aisle Six: Closing the Gap between Spectator and Performance in Uli Jaeckle’s Discounter

Abstract

Live Art and Spectator Live Art came into vogue in Britain in early 1960s and has since spawned a multitude of diverse approaches to artistic creation. Central to this diversity is notion that process of making art is just as important as result. Rather than preparing an artistic product to be viewed by an audience at a later time and a different place, typical Live Artist makes art in presence of spectator, in a shared space and coexistent moment of time. In 1970s and 1980s Live Art became an attractive template for making theater because of its open and direct relationship between artist and spectator. There is less distance between two because neither of them is pretending to be someone else--as actor in conventional theater would. Both remain who they are, and act of communication is therefore more truthful, more vulnerable, and more real. (1) This preoccupation with literal and figurative distance between spectator and performance is obviously not something new to theater. From Epic Theatre of Piscator and Brecht, to Artauds Theatre of Cruelty, to Grotowski's Poor Theatre and innovative work of Living Theatre and Augusto Boal's Theatre of Oppressed, relationship between spectator and performance has been scrutinized, reconfigured, and re-envisioned a thousand different ways. It is still in flux today at hands of companies like Punchdrunk, Gob Squad, Rimini Protokoll, and many more, that are relentlessly pushing boundaries of performance and spectatorship. Also seeking to redefine relationship between audience and performer is German director Uli Jaeckle. An artist at forefront of some of most innovative theater in world, Jaeckle started as a painter, and early in his career came under influence of Live Art movement, which has clearly shaped his aesthetic to this day. In his productions Jaeckle often explores and manipulates psychological and emotional distance between spectator and performance, attempting to close gap between two and create Live Art moments in his productions. He is a freelance director who currently holds theater chair previously occupied by Marina Abramovic (at University of Arts, Braunschweig), and lists her, along with Joseph Beuys and Rebecca Horn, as artists who instilled in him impulse to resist any art form based on pretense or illusion. Of Abramovic, Jaeckle says, brings herself into situations that are far away from pretending something. She doesn't create characters. She does art with her self, puts herself into situations that are ultimately beyond her control. She is just reacting to what is happening to her in that space and time. For me, that is poetic moment, moment where art truly happens. (2) Closing Gap For Jaeckle, art involves a never-ending search for the real, as opposed to illusionism of conventional theater. He often uses non-professional actors, everyday people, as he did in his recent production of The Odyssey at Deutsches Theatre in Berlin. Jaeckle believes that using non-actors helps to close gap between spectator and performance. For nonactors most compelling material, and easiest for them to speak honestly to an audience, comes from themselves: stories about their lives, about who they are, who they were, who they want to be. Using specific details of those stories, and an approach to theater devising that he calls Trackwork, Jaeckle creates affecting and rich portraits of human life: I'm always looking for real moment, honest moment. A very small event or action can be a spectacular moment. There doesn't have to be a big crime or big adventure to be fascinating to an audience. Sometimes it's enough to relate a small glimpse of our everyday lives. (3) For spectator, this brief but revealing glimpse into humanity of a performer can have profound emotional and psychological effects, bringing them both into a communal experience rarely bestowed by conventional theater. …