a-n professional development bursary – Self documenting live art

I finally got all the files I needed in Septempber (film and audio) and now the lengthy process of looking through over 5 hours of material with the mind of making a 5 minute excerpt begins.  I will probably  make an full performance film as well, but the priority is an extract that can be used to demonstrate the work quickly and clearly, not recreate the work itself.  As I have a bit of time off over December this shall be one of my main tasks!

Luckily, the sound will be quite easy to cut together as there is a certain amount of staticness to it with gradual changes over time.  These will quite easily crossfade together.  Currently I’m thinking only a few moments of video and audio need be sinked, but this may change when I begin.  Not sinking video and audio will probably help in condensing the work in an appropriate fashion and would make the process a lot looser and less time consuming – which is a factor to consider.  Having all of the material, I can always go back to it and keep tweaking if needed.  I aim to have a finished film up by the end of Jan!

Some photos taken at BEAST FEaST of my two performances – A precarious equillibrium of give and take (and round in ellipses we go) and Consider your footing.  My a-n bursary was granted to help me get a camera and work with a professional photographer and videographer and some of his students in time to capture my work at the BEAST festival.  These photos are taken by Jonathan Lee, James Brough and Anne Parouty.  I now have all video and audio files and will begin editing into a 5 minute(ish) film of the performance.  There are lots more photos to sort through and edit, the long work begins!

Some interesting online info about documenting art work…

https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/tate/archives-memory/what-is-an-archive/v/live-art-salon

https://www.gyst-ink.com/documentation/

https://vads.ac.uk/kultur2group/casestudies/Bristol2011.pdf

https://vimeo.com/18487018

http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/39562/

Given that most of my work has a time based element – either performance or sound installations, it’s important to be able to capture it in the moment – once it’s gone it’s gone.  Very little of my work is made to survive; even objects within it are temporary props and usually what is left is an audio recording – a very different manifestation of the original work and possibly a few poorly taken photos.   The focus of the work is the live experience.  This poses some questions when docuementing.

What is the function of the documentation -is it to re-present the performance in the future or to give just an overview of what happened?

Is it for an audience to enjoy or for a professional development purpose?

Will it be a new art work in itself or will it be a neutral account of a work?

Will it include the audience in it?

Will it be recorded at the live event or a separate filming?

Will there be cut shots or will it be continuous?

Will it have a particular aesthetic?

How will all the elements and the general feel best be captured out of context?

What are the ethical considerations regarding other people in it?

What are the creatively ethical considerations when working in improvisatory ways?

I started looking for examples of live art documentation, films and books that talk about these issues.  I found this video interesting.

Another thing for me to consider was who was documenting.  Given my budgets and way of working, I need to find a strategy for documenting my work myself, whilst also being part of it.  This has previously resulted in some quite shoddy results, so it is also important for me to decide when is the appropriate time to pay professionals to capture the work.

Whilst for some of my more chaotic DIY works a cruder set up would probably be suitable, for my performance at BEAST FEaST we decided it would be best to leave all the capturing to Jonathan and a couple of students.   Given that this piece was long, minimal, very slow and still, emersive and likely to get a good audience it made sense to leave the documentation to people outside the performance. Jonathan, James and Mathilde could capture the many different angles of the space, the audience, the shfting focii of the performance whilst I could focus on the performance alone.  This documemtation is designed to give me better material to present to curators/organisers to understand my current work so it needs to be quite simple to access, accurate and neutral.  More fun methods can wait for future works!

I’m trying to compile a list of interesting examples of art documentation – they will become another blog post.  If you have any suggestions please pop them in the comments!