Constructed Reality: The Remnants of Ephemeral Art - Felicity Hammond

‘Constructed Reality’ is a body of work made in response to the exploration of what it means to archive; do we lose even more authenticity through secondary representation? My main line of focus for this exploration will be specifically on the documentation of short-lived or temporary art.

Rebecca Schneider questions whether ‘the logic of the archive demands that performance disappears in favour of discrete remains’. (2001) I am interested in the documentation of a short-lived art work, and how its remnants might represent the true reality of the piece.  If Kember’s logic is thought true in that the ‘real is already lost in the act of representation’, then perhaps the performance or temporary art is ‘dead’ as soon as it is documented. Because of our cultural understanding of the archive as being a means of recording something temporary, we understand performance to be that which does not remain. Instead, ‘the document is what remains’. (Le Goff in Schneider, 2001).

I want to question Schneider as to whether the death of the original is necessary in order to ensure remains in what she describes as the ‘wake of modernity’s crisis of authority’. I will also explore what is meant by the remains, or the residue.

To begin this point, I will explain my understanding of the word, ‘archive’. When referring to the ephemeral being, the archive is used as a way of preserving memory; a way of making a fleeting moment, permanent. In application to the photograph, Christian Metz describes it as being able to cut off a piece of space and time, ‘of keeping it unchanged while the world around continues to change. The archive is able to preserve a moment that is defined by its temporality. The record is a ‘survivor of time’ (Derrida, in Clarke 2007). Jacques Derrida speaks about the origination of the word archive as coming from the greek word ‘arkheion’ which refers to the house belonging to the ‘archons’. The Archons were citizens who were able to make or represent the law. It was at their homes, the ‘arkheion’ where the official documents were filed and where they ‘dwelled permanently’. (Derrida,1995) This idea of being ‘housed’ suggests the materiality of the remains as tangible and a physical residue of what once was. If the housing of memory is strictly material remains, then where do we place the story teller, reenactments, or recitation? Mary Edshall (in Schneider 2001) suggests that memory cannot remain when housed in the body. Through ‘body to body transmission…you lose a lot of history’ This suggests that memory is not a valid form of archive - Reality cannot be accurately represented through gesture and oral response. Documentation needs to be something physical and recognizable; we have more faith in the photograph or moving image where we can contextualize the subject in our own spatial reality. I therefore agree with Schneider in that the archive must be material remains.

In thinking this, I am now able to consider Peggy Phelan’s writings, which state that

‘Performance’s only life is in the present. Performance cannot be saved, recorded, documented, or otherwise participate in the circulation of representations of representations: once it does so, it becomes something other than performance. Performance…becomes itself through disappearance.’  (1993) (In Schneider, 2001)

If this is accurate, then we must consider the materiality of disappearance; how can we translate the act of performance, interaction, and gesture, into something whose physicality might represent the truth of the original. In order to explore this idea, I have made performance work in response to the geometry of the space. Through documentation, the preservation of the performance is defined by its disappearance. I am interested in seeing how the archive might echo the performance, and become performative in itself. If this is the case, then it might be suggested that performance re-appears, as opposed to disappears. If the archive takes on the original state of the performance, then perhaps the death of the performance is not necessary in order to insure its remains.

However, even though the materiality might echo the original, I believe that it can still never be an accurate representation of the performance; the time and space in which the performance was made no longer exists. We therefore can only describe these events, not recreate them. As Derrida suggests, the use of archiving produces the loss of its objects and events. Perhaps if the event only exists through memory, we might be able to successfully preserve the reality of the performance. Although this contradicts my previous point about representing the performance in a way we can recognize, I think it is an important method of documentation. In his introduction on ‘Archiving Events’, Paul Clarke explains how memory and oral story telling has closer ontological resemblances to performance than image or text. Therefore, he argues, that ‘these are more authentic ways of saving the liveness of performance from disappearance.’ (Clarke, 2007)

I want to explore whether the archive, the residue of the performance, will accurately describe the true nature of the performance, or whether the archive becomes the performance in itself. Therefore, perhaps the performance only exists in its archival state; for it to exist, it must be viewed by the audience in the state that the artist intends – the artist has control over its existence. Through photographing, the artist is able to manipulate reality as it gives us a hyper-real, more intense reality. But once reality has been manipulated, is it still real? The idea of having complete control and the ability to manipulate the meaning through photography means that I can represent the truth of the performance however I want; the archive will be authentic and honest as it is my active choice. I have chosen to exaggerate the reality of the performance by digitally manipulating my documentation. I am not concerned about it being true to the original performance, as the performance could never exist in the way that it has been documented. As well as the photographs that show a hyper reality, I have included a video piece which demonstrates the construction of coding of a reality which does not really exist. Hyperreal encoding, ‘points to efforts to connote a sense of unmediated reality, but always via a coding system that is mediated.’ (goldman and Papson (1996) p62). By doing this, the viewer will understand the reality of the photographs in relation to the video showing parts of a ‘performance’ that they resulted in. I am unsure yet, as to whether these images will be read as ‘authentic’, or whether they will be recognized as fakes. Through exhibiting these ‘archives’, I do not intend to trick or deceive the viewer. It is more to encourage discussion about the validity of the archive as performance art, and to engage the viewer in conversation about photographic truths. If the act of taking the photograph changes the meaning or alters the truth of the moment, then surely it is just as valid to further exaggerate the representation of that reality, especially if that ‘reality’ never really existed in the first place.

I want to now return to my original question: do we lose more authenticity through secondary representation? In particular reference to the archive of temporary art, I think that the archive is no less valid than the original event or performance. It can never truly represent the original, whether a ‘faithful’ reenactment, a video, or a photograph, purely because the piece is viewed in a different context; the viewer is aware of the secondary nature of the documentation, therefore giving it a different meaning. However, because of this new meaning that has formed, we have to challenge whether the archive is in fact secondary representation at all. I first began by thinking that reality comes first, and then the communication about it and representation of it came afterwards. The truth is, that the account of reality takes on a new reality itself through the act of representation: ‘reality is continually formed and changed’ (Williams 1962, pg 19). Therefore, the archive may echo the original performance in its content, but takes on a new reality and validity as being read as a part of our external, present reality.