DOCUMENT

Documentation has been something used sparingly in the majority of my work, as I am more concerned with making an experience of there and then rather than something that could be accessed post event or viewed through an objective lens.

 

“There is no objective means of proving the occurrences of an event because proof and objectivity can only be recognised in a situation as approved by the knowledge of the state”
(Badiou, A. Being and Event, 2007)

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I therefore do not always display full video recordings of the situations, as was the case with Paid Opportunity. When I do include documentation of one of my situations it is primarily to illustrate a framework or structure used, not represent the experience of the encounter. This is usually why there are often images of the the unactivated situation.

 

In Paid Opportunity the videocamera was present in the audition to provoke a level of mediated co-operation, to formalise the constructs of the situation. It was a parameter, which would act as the participant's viewer in the encounter.

 

“The camera serves as spectator extraordinaire: a surrogate for all the viewers”
(Lambert-Beatty, C. Being Watched: Yvonne Rainer and the 1960s, 2008)

 

A similar method was used in Say Hi From Me. The idea is that just the presence of media representation can act as observer and in turn stimulate a certain type of performance from
the participant.