ABSTRACT
Performance is an ephemeral artistic expression – an action of an individual or a group occurring during a length of time for an audience. My practice as performer involves live manipulation of video and sound.1 Live audiovisual performance is an ephemeral art expression based on technological mediation and requires the presence and participation of artists and audience. The designation of ‘performance’ related to the designation of ‘live audiovisual’ emphasizes presence as meaningful and differentiates live audiovisual performance from other similar practices of live manipulation with sound and image, such as VJing and live cinema. Frequently, live audiovisual performance works extend beyond the expression with moving images and sound. These works open live audiovisual performance to intermedia. My use of the term ‘intermedia’ is rooted in the work of Dick Higgins who defines it as ‘works which fall conceptually between media that are already known’ (Higgins and Higgins 2001, 52). The term offers a discursive context to artworks that exist between media. Live audiovisual performance, understood as the combination of sound, moving image and performance, is multimedia because several media come together in a single performance, rendering the association with intermediality unnecessary. What makes live audiovisual performance works intermedia is the endless possibilities each performance affords when combining sound, image and performance with other media, such as text, drawing, programming languages, architectural surfaces and so on, in a combinatorial way, referring to ‘the co-relation of media in the sense of mutual influences between media’ (Kattenbelt 2008). These combinations exist for a project or a group of projects that, by including other media, extend the definition of live audiovisual performance to a position on the margins. Following Higgins, ‘this, then, is the caveat inherent in using the term intermedia: it allows for an ingress to a work which otherwise seems opaque and impenetrable’ (Higgins and Higgins 2001, 53). In my practice, I have been exploring intermedia possibilities within live audiovisual performance by combining text, graphics and drawings, photography with performance with sound and image. These media serve to establish intersections between ephemerality and stability, and between performance and documentation.2 My interest in the possibilities within
these combinations and intersections was triggered by my reflection on performance as an artist. I understood from my live audiovisual performance projects that evidence is missing that not only describes aesthetic results, but also expresses their ideas and concepts. Thanks to formal and informal conversations, I realized that this concern with lack of evidence is shared by other artists. As a researcher, it has been difficult to find evidence from which to develop a deeper understanding and study of contemporary live audiovisual performance. Videos of a given performance tend to describe its aesthetic results, but not the ideas or depth of its concepts. To this effect then, it is important to broaden the array of documental sources by including dimensions other than the aesthetic resulting sound and image presented in video. My suggestion is to look at a performance from a processual point of view, extending the time regarded as artistic expression to its creative process. Reflecting on how I create a performance prompts further inquiries and possibilities get formulated. I am using practice as a laboratory, where performances bring possible answers through experiments, and from the results there are answers. Some responding better than others, preparing the next projects, which are based on the findings of the previous. I have been investigating methods and processes from different arts, especially music composition and artists’ writings, and experimenting with possibilities of using these methods in the development of my performance projects. Reflecting the intermediality as a possibility within live audiovisual performance I am looking for potential combinations between media, in time, and between ephemerality and stability.
