I spent Friday and Saturday at the NOTES on a Return symposium at the Laing Gallery. This two-day event rounded off a series of artist talks and new commissions in relation a number of artist performances which took place at the Laing during the mid-eighties. Whilst I’ve not worked with performance, what interested me about this event was the discussion surrounding documentation, memory and the archive in this case related to performance-based practice.
The conversations and presentations were pretty wide ranging, but what struck me most was how a lot of the issues raised could be applied beyond live art – the most relevant area to my work being issues surrounding the affective documentation of a work which relies heavily on the moment and the atmosphere of that particular time and space. This conversation can easily be applied to installation work, and some of the problems I’m encountering at the moment.
Several of us clubbed together to get professional photography of our work, but I’m not sure that in my case it’ll be enough. In order to view my work, you need to physically move into, then through and around the space. There’s no one place that you can view all the pieces, or indeed see the entirety of the space. So is a series of photographs the best way to explain the piece? All documentation risks become something in its own right – a really good photograph can make something look more interesting than it actually is in reality – but is there a way of enriching / adding to this type of documentation to create a more rounding understanding of an installation?
I thought about videoing the space, but it seemed a little odd to use a time-based medium to record static works. One of the speakers at the symposium mentioned something quite interesting though – they’d had access to three different accounts of the same performance. Obviously the accounts themselves differed quite considerably in their descriptions and experiences of the event, but they nevertheless added a further depth to the documentation.
Owing to a lack of time (the exhibition has closed now, and I need to de-install in the next couple of days) I’m not going to be able to get three people to write accounts for me, but I thought it would still be something useful that I could do myself. I want to write something using language / in a style that reflects the feeling and content of the work – I’ll have a go and post here as regards the success or otherwise.
