Post-Performance in the Age of Hyper-Media

8/13/2019 Post-Performance in the Age of Hyper-Media

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INTRODUCTION

OUTLINE

This thesis is an interdisciplinary investigation into the contemporary

paradigm shift in performance art constituted by the proliferation of hyper-

media. It asserts that we have moved into the realm of “post-

performance”1 where the artist’s body and presence is mediated by the

screen. Post-performance diverges from the traditional concerns of

performance art and enters into a dialogue surrounding the conditions of

existence in an age of hyper-media.

“Post-performance narrative film”2 is the term employed to describe the

practice examined in this thesis, (a sub-genre, if you will of post-

performance). It represents the zeitgeist of contemporary post-modern

society and situates itself between performance art and narrative cinema,

thus, providing it fertile semiological value to reflect upon. It holds a unique

position as a hybrid of numerous art practices and an expression of

contemporary communication.

1The term “Post-Performance” refers to the neologism developed in this thesis to

describe the contemporary paradigm shift in performance art. Due to its

contemporaneous nature the academic literature published on this specific practice islimited and as such, is still described in terms of performance art or the performing arts.This practice diverges from performance art in such a substantial way that the applicationof a new term is warranted. This new term carries its own linguistic parameters andshortcomings but at the present time it is the best fit for this discussion. This termappears here in quotation marks, but will appear as standard text in the latter parts of thepaper.2

The term “post-performance narrative film” is a neologism and it refers to a sub-category of post-performance. It is a practice that oscillates between performance andnarrative cinema. It appears here in quotation marks, but will subsequently appear asstandard text.


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The difficulty in discussing this work arises from its hybrid nature. It is

neither performance art nor cinema, it is both. Deciding on a specific

theoretical terminology to employ and a theoretical base for analysis

proves difficult; this is where the interest lies. At times this discourse may

rely on performance art terminology or film terminology to elucidate

arguments. This is not to say that post-performance narrative film is one or

the other, but that the discussion is framed in the context of each

individual chapter or section.

It is asserted that the contemporaneous nature of post- performance

narrative film with its divergence from performance art and incomplete

adherence to cinema warrants the development of a new terminology to

describe it and an interdisciplinary approach to its analysis. Reflection on

the history of traditional performance art offers a framework to

contextualise the practice and account for its origins. It will also facilitate

an analysis of the ways in which post-performance has diverged from the

schema of performance art and poses the question ‘why this is considered

the next logical step of performance art?’.

The author will use the theories of Philip Auslander to initiate this

discussion, in particular drawing on those expressed in his book Liveness:

Performance in a Mediatized Culture (1999). Auslander’s theories

specifically focus on the performing arts rather than performance art but

his rhetoric is still within the scope of this thesis’ arguments. Auslander

accounts for the ways new media has influenced the production of art and


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why it is such a crucial development in the viewing and production of live

and screen based performative works.

Analysis of this text will position post-performance narrative film as the

contemporary expression of performance art and an example of

contemporary communication modes as influenced by hyper-media

infrastructure. Hyper-media is a term derived from hyper-text extending

the notion of the hyper-text link to include links among any set of

multimedia objects, including sound, motion video and virtual reality. It also

refers to a higher level of user or network interactivity than the interactivity

implicit in hyper-text. In an age of hyper-media so called “old” media like

television, newspapers and magazines join emergent media like mobile

devices, social networking media and internet video to create a new digital

culture, exemplified by websites such as YouTube and Facebook .

Traditional performance art has been displaced by hyper-media and

suggests post-performance is a strategy of subverting the dominant

media, accessing a position to effectively communicate with the viewer.

Rather than viewing post-performance as a negative symptom of culture it

highlights it as a development in the visual, artistic and theoretical

language and thus contributing to new knowledge in these spheres.

This thesis proposes hyper-media as the impetus behind the practice of

post-performance. The work of Jean Baudrillard and his account of

technological acceleration and the social, political and philosophical


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significance of digital media developments allow an understanding of

contemporary culture within an age of hyper-media. The decision to focus

on Baudrillard’s theories without discussing secondary literature such as

Derrida or Virilio is made in the interest of clarity and recognising this

documents length restrictions.

Baudrillard’s theories of simulation, simulacra and hyper-reality offer a

sound theoretical framework in which to analyse the influence of digital

culture upon post-performance narrative film. It allows the thesis to

concentrate on a sustained theoretical view supplemented with the work of

Auslander in which he applies these same theories to his discussion of the

performing arts. The notorious complexity of Baudrillards’ oeuvre demands

more than a brief summation needing ample attention directed to an

explanation and clarification of his theories thus, the discussion of the

theoretical framework is constrained to Baudrillard’s theories.

The second chapter examines the main contributing practitioners of post-

performance. This further shapes an understanding of the practice through

building on the historical context and placing it within a contemporary one.

First examined is the artist Paul McCarthy with an in depth analysis of two

of his works White Snow and Painter which best exemplify this notion of

post performance.

McCarthy is the only contemporary artist who is working entirely within this

specific framework and he is also important to the discussion for his


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subject matter. His often violent and grotesque subversions of Disney

narratives perfectly illustrate Baudrillards criticisms of Disneyland and

American popular culture. The discussion of McCarthy’s abject

performances also suggests another viable reason as to why a

performance artist might want to mediate their presence and body through

a screen.

The concept of gonzo documentary 3 will be touched upon in order to

demonstrate post-performance narrative film as a kind of cultural

phenomenon. Dr Stefan Popescu is the only published academic detailing

this phenomenon, and his paper Hyper-real Narratives: The Emergence of

Contemporary Film Subgenres (2013) as the name suggests, focuses on

contemporary cinema. What is being discussed is the notion of

storytelling and mythmaking and how that is altered by the acceleration of

digital media.

This paper draws similar conclusions in the emergence of a hyper-real

cinema and changes in spectatorship being due to the proliferation of

hyper-media. Popescu analyses Casey Affleck and Joachim Phoenix’s I’m

Still Here, in his discussion of gonzo documentary . However, the scope of

this paper is performance art and the notion of post-performance art

lending different interpretations grounded in an entirely different rhetoric. It

3See: Popescu, Stefan: “Digital Media and the Emergence of Contemporary Film

Subgenres” Journal of Literature and Art Studies” September 2013, Vol 3, No 9,[Accessed Online 1/10/13:http://www.davidpublishing.com/davidpublishing/Upfile/11/1/2013/2013110102943280.pdf ] p.569. Popescu employs the term gonzo documentary in order to describe numerousfilms which blur reality and fiction, in reference to the gonzo journalism of Hunter S.Thompson.


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is vital to discuss these examples as this paper seeks an interdisciplinary

and thus, holistic approach in accounting for the emergence of this

contemporary phenomena of post-performance and aids in drawing sound

conclusions as to why this type of work is relevant and important.

The thesis will also address the notion of the abject and posit post-

performance narrative as an important tool in bypassing viewer reactions

of shock and disgust. Using the films of Kurt Kren as a beginning point it

will highlight how performance documentation and the inclusion of

narrative can allow the performance to transcend its abject subject matter.

Appropriating the learned cultural system of cinema and narrative the

artist can develop new languages to realign audiences’ attention towards

concept and artists intent, or conversely alter the events, concept or artists

intent.

The discussion will be directed back to contemporary examples in again

discussing the work of McCarthy, which will be analysed as a reaction to

hyper-media in the form of reality television. The chapter will highlight how

post-performance has subverted the language of hyper-media in order to

critique it, whilst re-contexualizing the notions of performance and

abjection.

It must be noted the difficulty in discussing contemporary examples of

hybrid works or works which rely heavily on contemporary technology. The

rapid changes of media do not allow for any constants and therefore the


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examples of hyper-media within this theory limit themselves to already

well established forms (reality television). This does not limit the

discussion; rather it places the discussion into some kind of permanence

and historical context in an area where permanence does not usually

exist.

The approach of this thesis will be discursive and whilst it does account for

this contemporary trend discussing its origins, examples, concerns and

affects it does inherently remain speculatory. The nature of the theorists

and theories discussed lend themselves to dialectic contradictions and

thus, the approach of the thesis must also be in this discursive style. This

thesis aims to forward academic thinking on the theory of performance art

by attempting to identify and critically situate contemporary trends.

POST PERFORMANCE NARRATIVE FILM: TOWARDS A THEORY

Post-performance narrative film is simply a performance art piece

documented on film using a vast array of cinematic techniques in its

production and presentation. The performance is structured around an

overarching narrative. This may be linear or non-linear, traditional or

experimental, narrative in this sense is used according to a broad

definition and merely means the construction of a situation or premise in

which the performer or performers interact as characters.

This involves various elements of fact and fiction, meaning the actions


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taking place can either be real, falsified or a combination of both. It

generally adheres to a script and shot-list which informs the performance,

the script and shot-list are decided beforehand by the artist but can allow

situations that are improvised. It serves as a guide to be used in shooting

the performance. This adherence to a script and shot list at times calls for

actions to be stopped, started and at times repeated. The final film is

edited with considerations of character, setting, narrative and continuity in

mind.4

The traditional function of the camera in performance art is to document

an objective record of events to be used as authentication of the

performance. The camera in post-performance narrative film is elevated to

the status of ideological tool and comes to function as a second performer.

The performance no longer constitutes the camera's presence - it is the

camera's presence that constitutes the performance. In other words the

camera is no longer there to capture the performance; it becomes an

integral element in devising the performance. The camera and the shot-list

dictate how long the artist performs for, whether actions are repeated,

what actions are seen and what are deemed important.5

The film is subsequently edited and this editing disrupts the very time and

space the performance exists in. It can condense hours of performance

4See Appendix (a): Containing a description of post-performance narrative film

detailing the specific personal reasons for how this practice evolved and process offilming/editing5

Appendix (b) contains an example of the type of shot-list used; elaborating on howthe performance is filmed and performed.


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time into minutes, juxtaposing the actual performance with reaction shots

captured well before or after the performance was begun. Editing may

also remove performance actions altogether and the film acts as a

representation rather than a document of the performance. Other post-

effects can be used to further re-contextualise the performance for

instance, colour grading, added sound effects and compositing may be

used to enhance the production value of the film.

The audience is viewing a performance that is removed from real events

sometimes to the point of pure simulation. Performers reactions may be

re-acted and filmed if the actual reaction was not captured by the camera

or the performance may utilise props to simulate reality. For example a

performance may involve the performer bleeding whilst this action is really

performed the subsequent shots might require more blood than was

produced in order to create the intended effect. This is achieved through

either re-performing the action to extract more blood, or introducing fake

blood. There are a variety of other instances where fake substances are

used or events that are presented as real are actually “faked” or acted.

This represents a true notion of hyper-reality and is indicative of the

theories of Jean Baudrillard. The performance is a real event taking place

within an entirely simulated situation. Through narrative the performance

authenticates itself by placing actions into some sort of context for the

viewer. To use Baudrillard’s terms reality is authenticated through

simulation. Post-performance narrative film blurs the lines of reality and


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simulation by simulating elements of the actual performance. Actions are

repeated or staged and the performers’ re-actions are repeated, rendering

it impossible to distinguish reality from simulation. This is the very

condition of hyper-reality and as Baudrillard contends the very condition of

post-modernity.

Post-performance narrative film is symptomatic of a culture of hyper-

media and is still in its very early stages. By analysing the theories and

examples of this type of practice a theory of post-performance can hope to

be initiated. Within the last five years this work has begun to emerge and it

is important to begin a dialogue regarding an attempt to critically situate it.


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CHAPTER ONE: PUTTING THE POST IN POST-

PERFORMANCE

Performance art is currently experiencing resurgence in its public profile,

as curators and galleries launch numerous programs focused solely on

live-art events. Performance art is no longer the gallery interloper it once

was. However, many of these performances follow the communication

methods employed by the pantheon of performance art, a live presentation

of real, authentic actions by a present body, culminating in a relationship

between the performer and the audience where the passive act of

watching is exchanged for the active participatory role of witnessing.

The role of the audience and gallery is shifting with an emphasis on the

immersive and experiential potential of viewership, performance and other

live/new media art service this yearning for the immersive and

experiential. Traditional live performance art presents the audience with a

reality to engage with, in contrast to the contemporary cultural milieu.

Despite this renaissance curators and galleries are still playing catch-up

with the developments of performance art. The paradigm shift in

contemporary performance arts documentation and presentation is

beginning to become more apparent. Performance art of this type is a

polemic against the gallery systems promotion of a populist form of

performance art and an adoption of contemporary modes of

communication. Invariably influenced by the cultural phenomena of social


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media networks, rapid information exchange, access to affordable

technology, the pervasiveness of the screen and forever altered attention

spans.

In the current hyper-real cultural climate of viral videos and reality

television the absolute presence of a performance piece performed in real

time with real actions paradoxically renders itself false. What this thesis

describes as post-performance narrative film is the ultra post-modern,

specifically Baudrillardian approach to the documentation and presentation

of performance art.

Post-performance narrative film is the documentation of a performance

piece that uses a multitude of narrative film methods and techniques. In

opposition to traditional performance documentation the aim of post-

performance narrative film is to communicate concepts to the viewer and

imbue the reality of the performance with fiction, rendering the possibility

of distinguishing between fact and fiction utterly impossible. The cameras

role is not to authenticate reality and objectively capture events for

posterity, it is elevated to the status of an ideological tool.

Of course in the history of performance art, numerous artists began to

realise the potential of both the still and film camera in order to capture

performances for posterity and as a tool to disseminate concepts.

However, post-performance narrative film has extended this notion to its

logical extreme by incorporating elements of narrative film in all areas of


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production resulting in performance art where the foundations of reality

are constantly and intentionally questioned rather than authenticated with

the presentation of hyper-reality.

The performances in post-performance narrative film are highly

choreographed, performed to a crew and camera and not an audience,

the performance artist is a character in a narrative and the final film may

bear little to no resemblance to the actual events which took place in real

time. All these elements fit loosely in the broad definition of performance

art. However, the post-performance narrative film diverges completely by

placing a strong emphasis on film aesthetics, the repetition of actions, (or

re-taking of scenes), it is generally shot in a non-linear fashion and it relies

heavily on post-production editing techniques.

It also abandons the historical attempts of performance art to break the

barriers between artist and audience and positions the viewer as voyeur,

offering protection via the screen. The audience is no longer complicit in

the actions of the performer as they are no longer witnessing an event but

posthumously watching an event where truth and reality are ambiguous.

As such, the audience is absolved of all responsibility for the performer as

the possibility of interacting and affecting the outcome of events is

impossible. By positing the performance artist as a character in a

narrative, post-performance narrative film protects the viewer. Rather than

authenticating reality the work seeks to foster disbelief in actual events by


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attempting to manipulate the viewer into responding to the “text”6 as they

would a traditional narrative.

The viewer experiences a type of cognitive estrangement, as facts are

reported as fictional. For instance, a post-performance narrative film may

show the performance artist engaged in an act of real self-mutilation but

as it occurs within the space of a constructed fiction the audience

responds accordingly, with a suspended belief that the event (the self-

mutilation of the artists body), is also fiction. It is this inability to distinguish

reality from fiction (however liminal), that throws post-performance

narrative film into the realm of the hyper-real and mirrors the

communication modes of our technically advanced, post-modern society.

It allows for this type of work to directly engage with the contemporaneous

discourse surrounding not only art but the discourse surrounding media

and culture. It mimics the ways in which individuals produce their own

narratives and construct a self-image that is able to be constantly

augmented. The various social networking sites or the videos uploaded to

YouTube are merely representations of reality allowing the producer to

become a character within a self constructed narrative. Ironically

performance art through the screen removes the screen constructed

around reality, it reveals our tenuous grip on truth and more importantly

6Post-performance narrative film is referred to here as a “text” to allude to the process

by which the viewer now analyses the narrative or characters presented rather thanexperiences a live performance. In these terms post-performance narrative film is inter-textual and hyper-textual and it is therefore, important to examine the work with aninterdisciplinary approach given the nature of the work. The terminology used indiscussion of this work is not strictly limited to the visual arts.


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highlights our fallacious consumption of mass media simulations as fact.

The protection of the screen, narrative and characterisation of the

performer are also important tools utilised by contemporary transgressive

and abject performance pieces in order to bypass the initial viewer

reactions of shock and disgust. The transgressive nature of the work is

ultimately not in its breaking of taboos, but in the schism it represents in

the discourses of performance art theory, its mimicry of media and

manipulation of the viewer. Reflecting back onto us our inability to engage

with reality, as per the conditions of a culture proliferated with technology,

the age of hyper-media.

As the concept of post-performance narrative film is grounded in

performance art this thesis will primarily concentrate on examples of

performance. As such, it is vital to understand the historical context of

performance art, its developments and concerns, and how it is traditionally

viewed. In order to understand post-performance narrative film as the next

logical step in performance art, the ways in which it seeks to adhere to

and diverge from traditional performance art must be examined, initiating

the discussion of where post-performance is critically situated.

PERFORMANCE PARADIGMS: A BREIF HISTORY OF

PERFORMANCE ART

The origins of performance art can be seen in the early 20 th century when


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live actions performed and presented as a challenge to accepted artistic

mediums. The Dadaists, Futurists and to an extent the Russian

Constructivists all employed performance as a medium to explore and

present concepts to audiences. Futurism was officially founded by Filippo

Marinetti, within his manifesto Marinetti maintains Futurism rejects all

traditional forms of art “Literature has up to now magnified pensive

immobility, ecstasy and slumber. We want to exalt movements of

aggression, feverish sleeplessness, the double march, the perilous leap,

the slap and the blow with the fist.” 1 The Futurists concern was to also

shock the viewer “Poetry must be a violent assault on the forces of the

unknown, to force them to bow before man.” 7

Valentine de Saint-Point, an artist aligned with the Futurism movement,

responded to the misogynistic ideas expressed in Marinetti's Futurist

manifesto and developed ideas which combined theatre and dance which

she coined La Métachorie and saw this as a “total fusion of the arts.” 8 Her

first exhibition in 1913 took the form of a live performance in Paris. It was

a combination of light, sound, dance and poetry. The aim was to remove

the emotions created in dance by eliminating all expressions influenced by

music, effectively drawing the audience’s eye toward movement and away

from sentimentality, a notion the futurists fervently rejected.

It is widely accepted by western theorists that Dada offers contemporary

performance art a significant progenitor, with its unconventional poetry

7Toll, James: Three Intellectuals in Politics, 1961, Pantheon Books. P. 133

8De Saint-Point, Valentine: La Métachorie, Lettres et Arts. Retrieved 2 June 2012


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performances, theatre, music and various other staged events. These

organised events of 1917 held at the Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich confounded

the barrier between actor and performer, the performances were often

absurd verses accompanied by equally absurd acts in order to protest the

Great War. Between World Wars one and two various artists and schools

continued to expand the definition of performance art as a distinct art form

and highlighted a critical part of the content of performance art resides in

its ephemerality. Both Futurism and Dada's rejection of limitations and

traditional artistic aesthetic and conceptual concerns set a precedent for

the following pattern of Happenings and Fluxus events, providing an

impetus for the following decade’s examples of live art.

In 1952 the composer John Cage organised events at the Black Mountain

College in California where multi-media performances overlapped and

took place not on the stage, but in the middle of the audience. With these

extremely influential events the Black Mountain College set a precedent

for the events and proto-performances of the 1960's Fluxus and

conceptual art movements. Artists continued to interrogate the relationship

between the performer and the audience and it was in these early

performances that the main concerns of the discipline began to emerge.

Alan Kaprow's concept of the Happening were public events which

explicitly relied on the interaction between performer and audience,

instructions of the happening carried out by participators, a variety of

media and the incorporation of chance events.


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Yoko Ono's 1964 performance Cut Piece saw Ono passively kneeling with

a pair of scissors at her knees, the audience was invited to approach her

one by one, and cut a piece of her clothing off, eventually leaving the artist

nude. These performances focused on the audience/artist relationship

however, the development of the artists very body as the medium began

to experience a new emphasis with performances such as Carolee

Schneemans' Meat joy which saw participants writhe in raw fish, chicken,

sausages and wet paint. The piece transformed from sensual erotic rite to

repellent and abject.

This exploration of the artist's body as the primary art medium developed

into a sub-genre in its own right called body art and it was often

confrontational focusing on notions of transgression and abjection. This

gained momentum in part as a reaction to the restrictive philosophies of

abstract expressionist painting and minimalist sculpture. The theoretical

framework of body art was heavily linked to the theories of Mikhail

Bakhtin, Georges Bataille and Julia Kristeva, particularly her theories

outlined in The Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1982) which

became extremely popular at the time.

Western art historians generally trace performance arts official inception in

the 60's and 70's, as practitioners sought to cement the numerous live

action events taking place. The very task of defining performance art

proves to be problematic as by its very nature it is a diverse and


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experimental art-form which employs the concepts and aesthetics of

numerous disciplines, often simultaneously and may attempt to subvert its

own definitions. However, broadly speaking performance art is generally

understood as work which uses the artist’s body as a medium and the

actions subsequently performed become the artwork.

There were many practices that aimed to validate and legitimise body art,

but none more transgressive than the efforts of the Viennese Actionists.

Viennese Actionism was an extremely short movement active in the late

60's early 70's, its main participants were: Gunter Brus, Rudolph

Schwartskogler, Otto Muhl and Hermann Nitsch. The performances of the

Actionists like body art, was concerned with the use of the body as the

surface and site of the art practice. However, the Actionist pieces were

extremely violent and destructive. This paper will further discuss the

politics of transgression, the theories that shape the conceptual framework

of transgressive/abject performance art and the work of the Viennese

Actionists in latter arguments. Firstly, however, it is important to address

the developments Viennese Actionism made in relation to the

documentation of performance.

Performance focuses on time, space, the performer’s body and the

relationship between performer and audience, but these particular

variables are extremely fluid. The work can be scripted or un-scripted,

spontaneous, anarchic or heavily orchestrated, the work can also involve

the audience in the roles of passive viewer/voyeur or active participator.


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The performance may utilise a variety of media but it is the actions of the

performer or group in time and space constitutes the work.

Within all the examples of performance art a varied list of themes are

frequently addressed. Performance art is generally concerned with the de-

objectification of art, relationships between performer/audience and time,

relationships between performer/audience and the body, limits of bodily

endurance, incorporation of chance events or conversely the execution of

highly staged and dramatic events. The execution of self imposed

instructions, the abandonment of free will, the juxtaposition of media, the

publication of private experience may also be included. The personal,

cultural and technological implications of voyeurism, various social and

political concerns such as: sexism, racism, interpersonal relationships,

politics, religion/spirituality, gender, mass media and the human condition

and finally the exploration of the artist as art object or art medium9.

The performances of the 1970's saw an increasing focus on performance

documentation. Photographs and films as documents were superseded by

their power as independent images and in some cases bared little

resemblance to the original performances. Performance documentation

can be in the form of photographs, films, sound recording and the

exhibition of performance detritus as objects. Philip Auslander points out

the relationship of performance art and documentation is thought to be

ontological, the event preceding and authorising its documentation. It is

9 What is Performance Art, Marina Abramovic Institute, [Accessed online:http://www.marinaabramovicinstitute.org/mai/mai/30 ]


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indexical, providing proof of the event to an absent audience.4

Film and photographic documentation of performance art, allows not only

for it to reach a larger audience but to also produce new forms of

language and representation. It employs a bricolage of aesthetic,

performative and cinematic elements in its production. The ability of

documentation to be exhibited and thus collected permitted performance

arts to move into the gallery. The more interesting outcome from this

focus on documentation was the exploration into the aesthetic and

intimate potential of film and photography.

In the case of post-performance narrative film the conventions and

techniques of narrative film are heavily utilised. Allowing the work to exist

somewhere between performance piece and experimental film, it escapes

a concrete definition and oscillates between the simulations of narrative

film and the realities of performative actions. Post-performance narrative

film builds and synthesises the history of performance art by paradoxically

removing its crucial concerns and positioning the contemporary

performance artist in the role of a character following a narrative arc, an

actor performing a constructed script and a director methodically working

through a shot-list.

The flexible definition of performance art does ultimately allow for post-

performance narrative film to be somewhat incorporated into its broad

definition. Video performances may have no audience present, are

performed solely for the camera, adhere to the cinematic conventions of


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shot-lists, multiple takes, preservation of continuity. They may rely heavily

on a vast array of post-production techniques including editing which

disrupts the very space and time the performance occurs in. How can a

performance of this persuasion in any way be considered performance

art?

SPECTRES OF POST-MODERNITY: AUSLANDER, BAUDRILLARD

AND POST PERFORMANCE NARRATIVE FILM

Whilst this author proposes we have moved into the realm of post-

performance, this paper does not place post-performance narrative film

into a pre-existing genre or practice. Its unique position as a hybrid of

numerous art practices, its expression of contemporary communication

and its simultaneous adherence and divergence from traditional

performance art warrants an application of a new term to describe it. The

argument is not whether it is performance art or not, it is an investigation

into the origins of the practice, why this practice is significant and an

account for this shift into post-performance.

Therefore, it is equally important to understand the context of the

discourse and theory surrounding performance art. The concept of post-

performance and the practice of post-performance narrative film share

numerous similarities with the theories of Philip Auslander and his

conclusions of how liveness is being re-defined for a digital age.


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Within his book Auslander addresses the question facing live performance

art in the contemporary age: What is the status of live performance in a

mass media dominated culture? Auslander develops his argument by

contrasting his theories to those of Peggy Phelan in her influential book

Unmasked: The Politics of Performance. Auslander and Phelan mark two

distinct positions in this discourse. Phelan stands on one end of the

spectrum with the statement, “performance’s only life is in the present” 10

with Auslander occupying the antithetical position citing, the very existence

of the concept of “live’ as an effect of mediation.11

In Phelan’s work she attempts to construct ontology of performance which

Auslander responds with in his move away from ontological imperatives

that would delimit what is and what is not performance art.12 Phelan

argues performance art is defined through presence, anything that enters

into the economy of reproduction is one that sits outside the schema of

performance art.

The ontological imperative for both Phelan and Auslander is the question

of reproduction, or that which has been defined through its mediated

condition. Auslander focuses on the concern of reproduction in his

analysis of the mediated experience in contrast to Phelan’s view that work

which is mediated in this way ceases to be performance art. Auslander

maintains “that mediatization is the experience to which live performance

10Phelan, Peggy: “The Ontology of Performance”. Unmarked: The Politics of

Performance. London: Routledge, 1993. 146.11

Auslander, Philip: Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture. New York,Routledge, 2007. P. 3512 Ibid, P. 35


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must refer and which it must seek to recreate.”13

Auslander explains mediation is bound inextricably to liveness, on a

linguistic level in considering the etymology of the word “immediate” and

the use of “live” to describing events. Auslander investigates a range of

events from theatre to music videos and maintains “the history of live

performance is bound up with the history of recording media.” 14 The

relationship between the live and mediated is re-negotiated within a

cultural economy.

Auslander maintains, live performance has been displaced by television

and the general response of live performance to the oppression and

economic superiority of mediatized forms is to become as much like them.

For instance, ball games that incorporate instant-replay screens, rock

concerts that recreate the images of music video’s, live stage versions of

films and performance arts incorporation of video are all evidence of the

incursion of mediatisation of the live event. This points to the multitude of

ways cultural products inform and intervene with each other.

Phelan positions live performance as a site of representation without

reproduction. Auslander maintains this view disregards the economy of

reproduction that shapes our understanding of the world in an increasingly

mediatized culture. To develop an ontology of performance is to provide

an essentialist conception of live performance where meaning is pre-

13 Ibid, P. 5214 Ibid, P. 58


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determined and not historically contingent, essentially resulting in a

meaning that is assumed for the live and video mediums.

Auslander highlights the cultural shift in the production of contemporary

music video to illustrate this displacement of live performance by, and

subsequent adoption of reproductive technologies. He outlines the

theatricalization of live rock performances in the 1970’s “was an important

innovation that proved to be a condition of possibility for music video, then

live performance now imitates music video, imitating live performance, and

is thus another example of live performance’s recapitulation of mediatized

representations based originally on live performances.” 15

Returning to post-performance and the example of post-performance

narrative film, the proliferation of hyper-media such as reality television

and YouTube have effectively displaced performance. Authenticity is

represented in scripted events, augmented realities and re-written

personal narratives performed to a webcam and disseminated through an

online player. These mediatized representations are representations

based on reality but have more to do with our desires. It is the situations

we wish to see when watching a reality television program, or the person

we can now choose to be on YouTube. Post-performance narrative film

imitates hyper-media, imitating reality but post-performance does not

guarantee its authenticity it rather, guarantees its in-authenticity.

15 Ibid , p. 103


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This notion will be elaborated on through a discussion of the theories of

Jean Baudrillard in an attempt to understand the wider cultural

significance of post-performance and delineate the concerns of post-

performance narrative film. The discussion of Baudrillard also serves to

understand the hyper-media from which these mediatized representations

of performance art originate.

Patterns of media production and consumption, increased access to

technology, social media networks and hyper-media have proliferated

culture and in a particularly Baudrillardian expression we no longer

experience reality. We mediate our own image through social networking

sites, write our own personal and cultural narratives subject to constant

augmentations and consume such cultural phenomenon as reality

television. Reality is now constituted by the interface or the screen; it acts

as an events proof of its “having happened”16.

Within Simulation and Simulacra (1981) Baudrillard investigates the

interrelationship between symbols, reality and society. Baudrillard

maintains that contemporary society has replaced reality with a series of

signs and symbols, we experience simulations of reality. “Simulacra are

copies that depict things that either had no reality to begin with, or that no

longer have an original” 17 . Simulation “is the imitation of the operation of a

16Jones, Amelia: Body art: Performing the Subject, University of Minnesota Press, 1998

p.35. Jones expresses performance art and its documentation are mutually dependent,she describes the camera is proof of the performances “having happened.” 17

Goldman, Robert; Papson, Stephen: Landscapes of Capital, St Lawrence University,2011


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consumers life is so artificial, that even claims to reality are expected to be

phrased in hyper-real terms.

Baudrillard outlines three types of simulacra and places them within three

historical periods; the first order is associated with the premodern era

where representation is simply that, it is an artificial representation of a

real item. Objects and situations remain unique and thus he labels them

as real and unable to be reproduced.

The Second order is associated with the industrial revolution where

distinction between reality and representation is compromised due to the

in-numerable mass-produced copies of items turned into commodities.

The copies ability to mimic reality threatens to replace the authenticity of

the original version as the copy is now just as real as what it is copying.

The third order is associated with late-capitalism where the simulacrum

now precedes the original and the distinction between reality and

simulation is unable to be made. There is only simulation, rendering

originality a meaningless concept.21

Baudrillard explains that this inability to distinguish between reality and

simulacra can be seen in a number of contemporary phenomena.

Contemporary media such as the internet, film, and television are

responsible for blurring the distinction between products that are needed

21 Ibid, Summary of the main ideas throughout the body of the text


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and products that are needed in order to serve a media constructed

image. Exchange value, whereby the value of goods is based on money

and not use leading to use being defined in monetary terms merely to

assist exchange. Capitalism that separates goods from the original

materials and processes used to create them, urbanization which

separates humanity from nature, centralising culture around large

productive systems that alienate the individual. Finally, language and

ideology which is involved with the production of power relations between

cultural or social groups.

Focusing on Baudrillard’s notion of hyper-reality we can understand that

due to the effects of mass culture reproduction objects, events or

experiences are so reproduced it replaces and is often preferred to the

original. Baudrillard uses a discussion of Disneyland to highlight this

contemporary phenomenon and states it is a “perfect model of all the

entangled orders of simulation” 22 Disneyland functions not as an

ideological or ideal representation of America, but as a way of disguising

real America's ascent into the realm of the hyper-real and the order of

simulation. "Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us

believe that the rest is real, whereas Los Angeles [is] no longer real, but

belongs to the hyperreal order and to the order of simulation." 23

22 Ibid, p.1223 Ibid, p.12


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CHAPTER TWO: AGENT PROVOCATEURS

DIRTYING DISNEYLAND: THE PERFORMANCES OF PAUL

MCCARTHY

Paul McCarthy’s work can be summarised as anarchic, chaotic,

grotesque, abject and supremely provocative. His work is steeped in an

adolescence of American popular culture smothered in chocolate syrup,

food dye, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, children's toys and Disney.

These act as the sickly sweet materials, metaphors and appropriations for

the basest of human existence in an age of hyper-media.

McCarthy’s Disneyland is dirty, transgressive, abject, cruel and euphoric

but its familiarity is uncanny, often a distorted appropriation of a fairy-tale.

McCarthy’s Disney depicts the heights of human excess and consumption,

excreting chocolate syrup faeces, ejaculating mayonnaise in violent bursts

and urinating flows of bright yellow mustard. The notion of the artist as a

mystic is rejected, American pop-culture bastardised, all while hopelessly

and relentlessly blurring the lines of reality. McCarthy’s irreverent parody

and subversion of pop-culture repeat and reinterpret the familiar images,

approaching and at time often exceeding their limits.

McCarthy’s video works24 extend the experiments of incorporating video

24Paul McCarthy’s work will subsequently be described as post-performance or post-

performance narrative film from this part of the paper.


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into performance pieces and examines the possibility of video as a stage

for performance. McCarthy activates the potential of destructing sacred

and familiar images with the performative body mediated by the screen.

His work is truly an expression of post-performance; it resonates with the

viewer using a language based in the culturally learned system of cinema

and narrative.

McCarthy deconstructs and perverts the narratives made so accessible by

Disney, defamiliarising the narratives so ingrained in the collective

consciousness. McCarthy recently re-visited this recurring concept in his

2013 piece presented by Hans Ulrich Obrist White Snow at The Park

Avenue Armoury, New York. McCarthy explores the narrative of Disney's

Snow White in a performance film and sculpture installation imbued with

his own personal narrative.

White Snow is a Gesamtkunstwerk 25 in every sense of the term, it features

an artificial forest complete with 30 foot plastic trees, plastic flowers,

coloured lights and a central platform holding a 8,800 square foot replica

of McCarthy's childhood home in Utah, (see fig: 1) within the home a

seven hour long multi-channel video performance is projected at the sides

of the installation on giant screens (see fig: 2). The installation is the film-

set where all performances were filmed, the space also contains

monumental screens where other performances by the characters and

25Trahndorff, K. F. E.: Ästhetik oder Lehre von Weltanschauung und Kunst , Berlin

1827. Subseqently used by Richard Wagner in describing his work, usually translated to,

total work of art.


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McCarthy are projected. White Snow is a re-contextualisation Disney's

Snow White as interpreted from the original brothers Grimm tale. Snow

White is an amalgamation of the original character, McCarthy's mother,

Hollywood starlet and pornographic star played by actress Elyse Poppers.

Snow White engages in a series of explicit performances with nine

dwarves dressed in various ivy-league university jumpers, played by

pornographic actors hired by McCarthy. McCarthy himself performs as

Walt Paul a character based on the persona of Walt Disney, a Hollywood

film producer and a hyperbolised version of himself.

Throughout the series of performances a narrative emerges; Walt Paul

having invented the character White Snow now owns her, “Neither

daughter, sister, nor friend. You shall be no more than my slave,” 26

McCarthy says as he slathers White Snow in chocolate sauce and

sprinkles, forces her to fellate a boom mike to tape her moaning and later

shows her hosting a dinner-party come orgy with the nine dwarves.

Each scene is a separate performance piece all connected by the

overarching narrative of Snow White which McCarthy has deconstructed,

perverted and employed as a critique of contemporary media culture.

McCarthy reinvigorates the narrative as his own personal creation myth

whilst drawing from the techniques of narrative film. McCarthy's

performance videos are filmed in high definition and follow a rigid shot-list.

26Pollack, Maika: Paul McCarthy: White Snow at the Park Avenue Armoury, 2013

[Accessed online:http://galleristny.com/2013/06/paul-mccarthy-ws-at-the-park-avenue-armory/]


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All performances or scenes are scripted though sporadically broken by

unscripted actions which are repeated numerous times.

White Snow is a perfect exemplar of Baudrillardian theory; the

performances are documents of a reality which never existed shot in the

entirely artificial environment of a film set. The signs and signifiers in the

performances refer to other signs. McCarthy presents a simulation of the

Snow White character, a pastiche of unfaithful representations. McCarthy

re-interprets the Disney Snow White which is already a re-interpretation of

the brothers Grimm Snow White.

McCarthy's Snow White is a simulation of his mother and the archetypal

Hollywood film star complete with prosthetic nose. The character is then

physically repeated and fractured as two more Snow White characters are

introduced in the course of the seven hour performance, each embodying

new character archetypes and adding to the layers of narrative.

The manipulation of the Snow White tale and placing of the narrative into

the context of the American film industry concludes with the destruction of

the characters with varying degrees of violence, fake blood and body

doubles. “Today...no performance can be without its control screen

video...its goal is to be hooked up to itself...the mirror phase has given way

to the video phase. What develops around the video or stereo culture is

not a narcissistic imaginary, but an effect of frantic self-referentiality, a

short-circuit which immediately hooks up like with like, and, in doing so,


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emphasizes their surface intensity and deeper meaninglessness.” 27

The performances of White Snow are only viewed through the screen, the

viewer is watching what McCarthy wants the viewer to see. His inclusion

of the camera in shot, the repetition or re-takes of scenes left in the final

film and not removed in editing are entirely intentional. McCarthy provides

the viewer with a “truth” in which he refers to a reality which simply does

not exist. The performance is actually happening, the actions are real but

the performance is entirely simulated it is scripted, performed by actors

and edited.

Each shot is meticulously set and captured in order to be aesthetically

pleasing, clear in its communication of the characters motivation and

overarching narrative. By emphasising the camera and the process of

filming the performance McCarthy also paradoxically highlights the

performances as inauthentic but more importantly, through simulation in

his work McCarthy reveals the falsities of American culture production.

“(This) may have something to do with the production quality, which feels

somewhat real, somewhat un-scripted even with the use of typical

cinematic devices and “tricks” of fake blood and faeces. With Hollywood

films there is a general understanding that what we are watching is make-

believe, and yet with McCarthy’s performances for example one has the

impression that what they are watching is at the very limit of what is fact

27Baudrillard, Jean: America, Verso, 1989, p. 6


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and what is fiction.” 28

In one of Baudrillard's most famous case studies he analyses Disneyland

in order to illustrate his theory of simulacrum. Disneyland has been

created too look "absolutely realistic," taking visitors' imagination to a

"fantastic past." 29 The false reality created by Disneyland in turn creates

an illusion that engages society engages. Baudrillard states “it gives us

more reality than nature can.” 30 The various falsities that Disneyland

provides in the artificial houses and animals are constantly available to the

public, satiating desire and fantasy. It is in this satisfaction that the viewer

perceives these falsities as more desirable than reality.

Baudrillard expounds that the imaginary world of Disneyland that is

presented enables society to accept that the surrounding area is real.

Baudrillard maintains the surroundings of Disneyland, Los Angeles is not

at all real, but hyper-real. "The Disneyland imaginary is neither true or

false: it is a deterrence machine set up in order to rejuvenate in reverse

the fiction of the real. Whence the debility, the infantile degeneration of this

imaginary. It's meant to be an infantile world, in order to make us believe

that the adults are elsewhere, in the "real" world, and to conceal the fact

that real childishness is everywhere, particularly among those adults who

go there to act the child in order to foster illusion of their real

28Callender, Neil: Shock Horror, Blanche Magazine, 2011. Quoting Charles Riva, in an

interview regarding the work of Paul McCarthy.29

Eco, Umberto: Travels in Hyperreality, Weaver, William (trans), Mariner Books, 1990.p. 4330 Ibid, p. 44


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childishness." 31

“Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that

the rest is real, whereas Los Angeles is no longer real, but belongs to the

hyperreal order and to the order of simulation." 32 Therefore Disneyland

has become more real than America and it has never been real to begin

with, we can no longer differentiate between reality and simulation - this is

what Baudrillard describes as the implosion of all meaning.33

Baudrillard also states “if we could accept this meaninglessness of the

world, then we could play with forms, appearances and our impulses.” 34 In

the case of Paul McCarthy and post-performance narrative film the

meaningless of media is accepted, practitioners mimic the linguistic

structure of mass media and effectively play with the forms and

appearances of performance art developing new modes of

communication.

McCarthy also simulates the very processes and viscera of the human

body allowing them to enter into the status of the hyper-real, often using

bodily viscera surrogates; mayonnaise for semen, tomato sauce for blood

and chocolate syrup for excrement. White Snow is no exception,

containing scatological scenes where White Snow is covered in excrement

- in fact the actress is slathered in chocolate syrup.

31Baudrillard, Jean: Op Cit, p. 166

32 Ibid, p. 1233 Ibid, p. 1234

Baudrillard, Jean: Impossible Exchange. Turner, Chris (trans), New York, Verso,2001. p. 128.


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This is important in relation to the theories of Baudrillard as what we are

viewing, in this absence of real bodily viscera, is what we desire; bodies

that no longer produce the base and abject wastes of our bodily functions.

McCarthy's White Snow shows us clean filth, a sterile and appropriately

“Disneyfied” approach to the presentation of the abject. “Hygiene is the

religion of fascism. The body sack, the sack you don’t enter, it’s taboo to

enter the sack. Fear of sex and the loss of control; visceral goo.” 35

McCarthy offers his program of resistance against the culture production

factory that is Disney, unveiling the screens of simulation ironically by

presenting simulations of his own. What is important in the scope of this

dissertation is that McCarthy engages in the practice of post-performance

narrative film. He exchanges the immediacy of the live performance for the

control screen of video.

He is thus able to manipulate viewer response and mediate experience

whilst crafting a narrative that exploits the collective cultural knowledge of

Disney films. McCarthy assembles personal mythology and narrative to

present pure simulation, subverting the communication methods of hyper-

real media and highlighting a reality that never existed.

In another of Paul McCarthy’s post-performance narrative films, he again

critically examines American culture and the very media he is using to

35Weissman, Benjamin: Paul McCarthy, BOMB Magazine, Vol 84, Summer 2003.

Quoting of Paul McCarthy in response to an interview question.


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produce his work. McCarthy’s 1995 piece Painter constructs the mise-en-

scene of instructional television, (see fig: 3) he creates a loose narrative

that follows his grotesque and parodic impersonation of the abstract

expressionist Willem De Kooning. The audience sees him shuffling around

a sound stage, splashing paint and other viscous materials around whilst

mumbling and repeating lines in a ritualistic manner, then cutting to other

scenes where McCarthy is interacting with actors on office and talk show

sets.

The piece is edited as if it is a television show with the opening credits

over-layed with music, the camera moving with the performer, cutting from

wide to carefully selected close-up’s and with McCarthy even staring

directly down the barrel of the camera addressing the audience with his

gaze. This develops a new proximity to the viewer, a proximity that is

insidious, playing with the familiarity of film and television conventions.

At once the performance is distanced from the viewer, the live presence of

the performer and the pre-empted audience fears of interaction are gone,

replaced by a seemingly innocuous screen. However, the structure of

McCarthy’s Painter is the structure of a television program, this is a

structure deeply ingrained within our collective conscious. The

performance is mediated by the distancing effect of the screen and the

heavy authorship of the artist. The performer’s body is stuck between

technology, the camera and the screen and the artist is now a character

on set.


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This is what is meant by the use of the camera as an ideological tool.

McCarthy presents the viewer proof of a performance that never existed.

The viewer is left with the “spectres”36

of a performance and the final film

acts as simulacrum. Recalling the previous discussion of Baudrillard's

simulation and simulacra in these terms, McCarthy’s work fits directly into

the third order of simulation. The viewer is seeing an edited piece that

seemingly follows a linear progression of time, a performance that follows

a set of actions performed only once.

The reality is the viewer is merely watching a representation of a

performance mediated by the artist. McCarthy decides what the audience

views and how they view it by drawing on the manipulative techniques of

hyper-media and television. Close-ups of the performers face and direct

address to the camera fosters a relationship with the viewer like never

before. The intermingling of reality and fiction, performer and actor, mimics

the conditions of reality television and of hyper-media using this mimesis

to at once radically critique, but also to simply communicate in a digital

culture.

Traditional performance art is performed for an audience whereas post-

performance narrative film is presented to the individual, it is as if the work

is being performed solely for the individual watching. Positing the

36In reference to Jacques Derrida’s Spectres of Marx where he examined the

contemporary influence of Marxism likening this to a spectre or ghost. This terminologyused to directly express McCarthy’s post-performance narrative films showing thespectres or ghosts of traditional performance art.


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performance artist as a character and the performance as a loose

narrative it provides a context for the actions. It allows transgressive and

abject performance art to transcend the reactions of shock and disgust

and discuss the notions of post-modernity, hyper-reality authenticity,

performativity 37, voyeurism and simulation. It critically examines hyper-

media and contemporary culture by way of mimesis38

Post-performance narrative film is the highest order of simulation, only the

copies remain. The final product is a bricolage of scenes which could be

the first take or could be the seventh, this is impossible for the viewer to

distinguish. The copy has come to alter and actually determine the real,

the cultural phenomenon of reality TV and various other examples of

hyper-media have informed our understanding of what we consider real

and how it is displayed.

This development of media has extended to the documentation of

performance art and has effectively altered and determined what

constitutes documentation. Therefore the simulation has replaced and

determined the real. However, Post-performance narrative film operates

with an awareness of this phenomenon and employs intentional

simulations to subvert the communication methods of hyper-real media.

37In reference to Philip Auslanders discussion of performance art and its

documentation outlined in The Performativity of Performance Art Documentation,Performing Arts Journal, 84, September 200638

Irigaray, Luce: This Sex Which is Not One, Porter, Catherine (trans). CornellUniversity Press, 1985. From the form of resistance or strategic essentialism discussed innumerous examples throughout the book where women imperfectly imitate genderstereotypes in order to undermine them. Post-performance narrative film imperfectlyimitates the structures of hyper-media in order to highlight its failings, generally viasubversion, pastiche or satire.


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Narrative also becomes an important method of social critique when

existing in the age of social media. Online profiles on Facebook represent

an augmented and preferred simulation of ourselves, it reads as a

personal mythology. Social media has reached such a cultural saturation

point it is impossible to distinguish between our online persona and our

real persona, this simulacrum cannot be denied as it defines and affects

our real relationships. We are constantly re-writing, editing and

documenting our lives adding to our individual and cultural narratives,

identity is fragmented operating on a number of actual and virtual

platforms. We are effectively curating our lives for others according to

what we desire our reality to be.

The post-performance artist produces their work in the same way

structuring their desired realities or performance outcomes. Performance

is no longer left to chance, the risk of an action or reaction being obscured

or an intention being misconstrued is virtually non-existent. The

developments of communication, ability to acquire affordable technology

and instant information, the proliferation of hyper-real media and our

desire to produce our own personal mythologies and simulate ourselves

online have irrevocably altered the way we communicate. Post-

performance narrative film is the logical outcome of this cultural climate, a

by-product of this procession of simulacra.


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FAMOUS FAKERS: THE PHENOMENON OF THE “GONZO

DOCUMENTARY”

The concepts explored in post-performance also extend themselves to

cinema resulting in the emergence of contemporary film sub-genres such

as the prankumentary 39 or gonzo documentary 40. Of course it must be said

that there is no shared ideology with post-performance but it is vital to

explore this phenomena as a whole and investigate the similarities across

all forms of digital media in order to effectively situate this phenomenon

both critically and culturally. In discussing the notion of gonzo

documentary and more to the point, contemporary narratives it provides a

context with which to investigate the notion of narrative within post-

performance narrative film.

Within the paper Hyper-Real Narratives: Digital Media and the Emergence

of Contemporary Film Subgenres Dr Stefan Popescu discusses the

emergence of three contemporary film subgenres and frames these within

the contemporary developments of digital filmmaking, social media

infrastructures and the hyper-real phenomenon of gonzo exhibitionism41.

39

Catsoulis, Jeannete: “On the street: At the corner of art and trash” The New YorkTimes, Published April 15, 2010. One of the the first published appearance of the term“prankumentary”, Catsoulis reviews “Exit through the Gift Shop” and uses the term“prankumentary” to describe the speculation surrounding the true authorship andauthenticity of the film as a documentary.40

Popescu, Stefan: “Digital Media and the Emergence of Contemporary FilmSubgenres” Journal of Literature and Art Studies” September 2013, Vol 3, No 9,[Accessed Online 1/10/13:http://www.davidpublishing.com/davidpublishing/Upfile/11/1/2013/2013110102943280.pdf ] . First academic paper published using and delineating the term “Gonzo-Documentary”.41

Ibid. Popescu refers to the cultural phenomena of image self-reproduction, cultural


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This articles focus is on contemporary film, however it clearly delineates

the cause and effect of hyper-media, “[it] is more about storytelling and

mythmaking and the idea of “reality” through digital media” 42.

Examples of gonzo documentary see the filmmakers adding fictional

elements into the documentation of facts. Examples of this can be seen in

the films I'm Still Here43, Exit through the gift shop44 and Francophrenia45 .

In Gonzo documentaries the filmmakers are the actors and often the only

people aware that they are acting. In these examples the celebrity exhibits

themselves on film using the techniques of documentary film to provide an

authenticity to events which may be real or entirely fictionalised.

The ability to distinguish between reality and simulation is impossible and

as Popescu surmises “In a particularly Baudrillardian gesture, the writer is

also the performer and manufacturer of hyper-real reception of the text” 46.

Where this becomes interesting in the discussion of post-performance

narrative film is the re-writing of the celebrities’ personal narrative, “re-

contextualising their status as celebrity ”47.

The celebrity relies on the development of rumour, circulation of media

and speculation of audiences to perpetuate the narrative, even to the point

myth-making and narrative control as “gonzo exhibitionism” or “gonzo reality” resultingfrom the proliferation of digital technology and social media infrastructures, drawing fromthe idea of “gonzo journalism” and its blending of narrative and factual reportage.42 Ibid, p. 56943

See Filmography: Affleck/Phoenix44

See Filmography: Banksy45

See Filmography: Franco46

Popescu, Stefan: Op Cit, p. 56947 Ibid , p. 573


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of tactically using the media to continually perform. For example, before

the release of I'm Still Here Joaquin Phoenix famously appeared on the

David Letterman Show in character, performing to a stunned audience48.

Phoenix acted erratically, answering interview questions esoterically and

announcing his retirement from acting. He re-contextualised his celebrity,

positing himself as a troubled star deciding to embark on an ill advised rap

career seemingly in the midst of a personal breakdown.

This is an example of post-performance in every sense, Phoenix

presenting a performance structured around narrative and character which

involves various elements of fact and fiction. Phoenix and Affleck employ

the vehicles of film, television and the media as ideological tools to

disseminate concepts. Phoenix's performance on the Letterman show

addresses the banality of contemporary media-scapes and cultures

voyeuristic desires, mimicking the destructive behaviours of other

celebrities which are consumed through print media, television and social

media networks.

We can understand this through the theories of Baudrillard when he writes

of the ecstasy of communication. Baudrillard speaks of the pornography of

information and communication he continues, “It is no longer the obscenity

of the hidden, the repressed, the obscure, but that of the visible, all-too-

visible, the more visible than visible; it is the obscenity of that which no

longer contains a secret and is entirely soluble in information and

48Joaquin Phoenix interviewed by David Letterman on The David Letterman Show,

22nd

of September, 2010


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communication” .49

We are truly in an age of hyper reality, and we expect our information or

rather, mis-information to be expressed in hyper-real terms, consuming

indistinguishable fact and fiction via social networking platforms and blogs.

Endlessly repeated and re-written in re-posts on Facebook and re-tweets

on Twitter , occasionally marked down for posterity on blogs claiming

authenticity over unchecked “facts” and meaningless repetitions.

When Baudrillard expresses the notion of the obscene it is not an ethically

loaded term, and it is important to note is not to judge the morality of

images. Baudrillards meaning of the term obscene is that which has no

scene to stage it, the prefix ob meaning hindrance or being against. The

“ob-scene” expresses the collapse of distance in our social experience.

“The task of all media and information today is to produce this real, this

extra real (interviews, live coverage, movies, TV-truth, etc.). There is too

much of it, we fall into obscenity and pornography. As in pornography, a

kind of zoom takes us too near the real, which never existed and only ever

came into view at a certain distance”.50

Going back to the examples of Paul McCarthy and Phoenix, they both

present the artists body mediated by the screen, McCarthy in the

choreographed performance films and Phoenix in both film and his various

television appearances and interviews. There is a simulation taking place

49Baudrillard, Jean: The Ecstasy of Communication, Semiotext(e), 1988 p. 127

50 Ibid, p. 83


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that the viewer has access to reality through this screen and the viewer

believes the camera to capture all information and un-cover truth in its

constant coverage. However, this is false. The camera is capturing what

the artist wants the audience to see: the simulations, narratives and

characters. This mirroring of contemporary media enters into the discourse

surrounding it and expresses something about the conditions of existence

in the age of hyper-media.

Post-performance narrative film radically critiques the media and digital

technology it utilises and thus, is able to assert itself to a position of

cultural relevance. It is important to identify that it is still grounded within

the visual arts, a realm that is ultimately gratuitous and as such its

implication is not to be overstated. It is, like Facebook or Twitter a

symptom of the times. It does however, offer a model of critique towards

media and illustrates how society consumes it, which is a vital part of

resistance and resistance is a part of a healthy, functioning society.


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CHAPTER THREE: SPIT OR SWALLOW: DIGESTING FILTH

ON FILM

This last chapter will examine post-performance and post-performance

narrative film's direct contribution to the visual arts in terms of its creation

of a new mode of language and development of performance art. This will

be discussed using the particular example of transgressive or abject

performance art as it provides an extremely tangible example of how this

language is employed and how it communicates with an audience. It will

also discuss how aesthetics, narrative and character in post-performance

narrative film are used as a strategy of overcoming audience reactions of

shock and disgust in relation to abject subject matter. This investigation is

employed as an example of how this practice is actively being used in the

visual arts to develop the language of performance and abject art. It

begins the discussion and situates its importance as an area of practice

and subsequent academic study.

Abject performance art is a piece that contains abject subjects, materials

or substances. The term was initially used in the 1990’s by literary theorist

Julia Kristeva outlined in her essay The Powers of Horror: An Essay on

Abjection Kristeva introduced the concept of abjection as the fundamental

differentiation between the self and the non-self. Abjection was defined as

a reaction to a confrontation with the abject, generally triggered by disgust.


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It is simply the “state of being cast off” 51, the abject is that which threatens

the breakdown of meaning caused by the loss of distinction between

subject and object, or between the self and other. For example, the

cadaver, the open wound and excrement remind us of our own mortality

and materiality. Our human reaction to this stimuli is horror and disgust

and as Kristeva explains “draws me towards the place where meaning

collapses” 52

There have been numerous academic and political appropriations of

Kristeva’s work. Works from the late 70’s began to explore a Kristevian

notion of the abject and the traumatic reaction associated in viewing the

abject. These works depicted bodily waste and fluids at odds with the

desire for a clean and proper body. This depiction of bodily viscera and

secretions reminding us of the distance we keep from our bodily wastes in

order to live. It is this separation from bodily wastes that keeps us alive

“such wastes drop so that I might live, until, from loss to loss, nothing

remains in me and my entire body falls beyond the limit – cadere,

cadaver.” 53

The work of artists such as: Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe,

Matthew Barney, Kiki Smith and Gilbert & George are some of the artists

who had a prominent role in bringing to the fore notions of the abject.

Abject works often displayed the base materials of the body, for instance

51Kristeva, Julia: “Powers of Horror an essay on Abjection” Colombia University Press,

1982, p.352 Ibid, p. 353

Ibid, p.3


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the naked shit 54 of Mike Kelly and Gilbert & George, Robert

Mapplethorpe’s work referring to anal pleasure and Cindy Sherman’s

photographs depicting vomit, earthworms, mould or bodily secretions.

Laura Mulvey maintained Sherman’s photographs were the visual

equivalent of the academic theories of Kristeva, “The disgust of sexual

detritus, decaying food, vomit, slime, menstrual blood, hair. These traces

represent the end of the road, the secret stuff of bodily fluids that the

cosmetic is designed to conceal… Her late work comes close to depicting

the Kristevian concept of the abject: that is, the disgust aroused in the

human psyche by lifeless, inanimate bodily matter, bodily wastes and the

dead body itself.” 55

Abject performance art removes the screen we construct to protect

ourselves from the traumatic experience of being confronted with the

abject. This unveiling of the abject with performance has its roots in the

work of the Viennese Actionists and later with the abject art of the late

60’s. These were indebted to the theories and work of Mikhail Bahktin,

Georges Bataille and Antonin Artaud’s “theatre of cruelty.”

These performances for the most part, (excluding the films of Otto Mühl's56

work by Kurt Kren) were live. They aggressively and violently presented

54In reference to the series of Gilbert & George photographs Gilbert and George: The

Naked Shit Pictures, South London Gallery, 199555

Mulvey as quoted in, Chanter, Tina: The Picture of Abjection: Film, Fetish and theNature of Difference, Indiana University Press, 2008, p. 8356

Otto Mühl's name has two different spellings, (Muehl, Mühl) this thesis will use theGerman spelling containing the umlaut, but it is important to note there is an alternativespelling of the name.


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the notion of the abject to audiences in a live and present manner. With

relation to post-performance narrative film this begs the questions, how is

this strong and vital sensation57 altered when mediated by the screen and

why is it important?

PAPA UND PAPA: THE ORIGINS OF POST-PERFORMANCE

NARRATIVE FILM IN THE ACTIONIST FILMS OF KURT KREN AND

OTTO MUHL

The films of Kurt Kren and Otto Mühl are important to discuss as they

account for a possible origin of post-performance narrative film and like

the work of Paul McCarthy discussed earlier, use the techniques of film to

produce a hybrid of film and performance. What was interesting for these

artists was the investigation into and approach of the abject as subject

matter and the use of formalist film to bypass the viewer reactions of

shock and disgust to develop new visual languages.

The transcendence and re-contextualisation of abject or transgressive

subject matter through narrative, character or in the case of Kren, editing,

are simply a few of the examples in which post-performance narrative film

can be used to disseminate concepts or develop new languages. In a

performance where the performer is mediated by screen and isn’t present,

the audience is able to move freely now the artist is not able to return their

57Kant, Immanuel: “Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View”, trans. Louden B,

Robert, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p46. Kant describing the human sensation ofdisgust as a strong and vital sensation.


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gaze and the threat of possible interaction is gone.

They can refuse to watch the film and choose to walk out, especially given

the propensity of abjection and transgression to shock and disgust. These

examples show how the practice of post-performance can be used to

bypass initial viewer reactions of shock and disgust and begin to operate

within a wider conceptual and cultural framework.

The term “actionsim” was first used in 1970 by artist Peter Weibel to

discuss the emerging trend of actions and forms of actions in Austrian art

throughout the decade.58 Weibel did not associate with any artist in

particular however, Viennese actionism has become synonymous with the

artists: Gunter Brus, Rudolph Schwartzkogler, Herman Nitsch and Otto

Mühl who were made infamous by the “Kunst und Revolution/Art and

Revolution” event in Vienna, June 1968 where they issued the

proclamation:

“... our assimilatory democracy maintains art as a safety valve for enemies

of the state ... the consumer state drives a wave of "art" before itself; it

attempts to bribe the "artist" and thus to rehabilitate his revolutionising

"art" as an art that supports the state. But "art" is not art. "Art" is politics

58Green, Malcolm: “Brus Mühl Nitsch Schwarzkogler. Writings of the Viennese

Actionists” London, Atlas Press, 1999, p.11: Hubert Klocker also suggests that the term"Vienna Action Group"

first appeared in 1965 in an essay for a catalogue publication that accompanied Brus'exhibition at Galerie Junge Generations. See Hubert Klocker, "The Dramaturgy of theOrganic" in Viennese Actionism, Vienna, 1960-71 (Klagenfurt: Ritter Verlag, 1989).


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that has created new styles of communication”.59

There was no consensus among the artists or any collective notion of a

movement. Rather, the name Viennese Actionism was applied to various

collaborative configurations among these four artists. The work of the

Viennese Actionists was often ritualistic, with elaborate performances

examining sexuality, moral taboos, violence and disgust. Drawing on a

wealth of religious symbolism the actions frequently incorporated bodily

viscera, bodily viscera surrogates and animal slaughter. The work was

interpreted as a reaction to mainstream Viennese culture and was an

attempt to develop new extreme languages of gestural painting.

This focus on

Post-Performance in the Age of Hyper-Media

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