a walk in the woods: an undocumented performance
The moblie ran but it was not to be answered. It was the signal to come down stairs where the car would be waiting for me to take me to the woods. I put on my gloves and PVC mac over my basque, girdle, stockings and over-the-knee boots and made my way out. I looked at myself in the mirror in the hall as I passed. My lips, covered in bright red lipstick, outlined in black pencil glared. My eyed were heavily made up. My hair back-combed and stiff with lacquer.
The night was still and the moon full.
The passenger door of the large black car was open. I got in and sat down facing forward. He leant over and pulled a leather hood over my head and face and sealed it on with a leather collar. He zipped the mouth and eyes shut.
When the car stopped and the engine was turned off. He attached a chain leash to the collar and pulled me out onto the tar mac. 'Out bitch,' he said. He yanked on the chain and I had to walk slowly onwards in my high heels. The air was cool. on my upper legs and chest. Then the tarmac gave way to grass. I stumbled for the tenth time. He told me to stop walking. He took my coat off me and told me to squat and to piss. He held his hand under me. The mouth of the hood was unzipped and he put his urine wet fingers in my mouth which I licked. Then he zipped the mouth up again and lead me back to the car. The hood was taken off me now. It was a beautiful cold moonlit night. I almost wept with relief now.
'Get back in the car bitch,' he said.
He drove me home. We neither spoke nor acknowledged each other until he told me to be ready for him again in four weeks time.
The night was still and the moon full.
The passenger door of the large black car was open. I got in and sat down facing forward. He leant over and pulled a leather hood over my head and face and sealed it on with a leather collar. He zipped the mouth and eyes shut.
When the car stopped and the engine was turned off. He attached a chain leash to the collar and pulled me out onto the tar mac. 'Out bitch,' he said. He yanked on the chain and I had to walk slowly onwards in my high heels. The air was cool. on my upper legs and chest. Then the tarmac gave way to grass. I stumbled for the tenth time. He told me to stop walking. He took my coat off me and told me to squat and to piss. He held his hand under me. The mouth of the hood was unzipped and he put his urine wet fingers in my mouth which I licked. Then he zipped the mouth up again and lead me back to the car. The hood was taken off me now. It was a beautiful cold moonlit night. I almost wept with relief now.
'Get back in the car bitch,' he said.
He drove me home. We neither spoke nor acknowledged each other until he told me to be ready for him again in four weeks time.
posted by venus_von_flytrap at 9:29 pm
12 Comments:
isn't this description documentation?
yes
but i have called it that
a) because it provokes the question you have just asked
b) because there was no audience or recording of it is
c) is a story about something actually documentation?
d) is this an oxymoron? can you have an "undocumented"performance?
arent these questions just great and full of paradox?
what did you think of the story anyhow. is it a performance?
hm. I don't think it is necessarily description documentation. For me it is story telling and it can well be a performance... but I have the feeling that for it being a performance both of the parties need to have been involved in the set up of the frame to qualify as a piece of work. (although you could have done a piece about going into an adventure without any idea about the outcome) This does not seem to be the case here though, as I feel you are telling us what happened to you in a semi-mysterious encounter that is part of your "every day life". In that case it is a documentation (but not of a performance) or story telling. It is beautifully told though. In the beginning i was not sure if I wanted to continue reading it because it seemed along the lines of predictability but then I was hooked (although S/M is not my thing).
An art work can be a performance without whitnesses or documentation of the actual happening, I feel, but it needs some sort of way to communicate itself - which can happen in form of words (as in a diary for example).
Also, I would be interested in why you did it and what you would like to communicate through your piece?
d) yes, if you don't document a performance, then it is undocumented. i think a description of it counts as documentation, so if you want it to be undocumented, you can't tell anyone about it afterwards. this is not the same as not having an audience. if you have an audience then surely there is much less need to document it?
c) what makes a story? i read the post as a description of something that had happened, and therefore, in my opinion, it is a document of the thing that happened, even if the description is subjective. did it actually happen?
b) if you had an audience then they would experience it live, and so would not necessarily need any documentation.
a) for me there is no question of this, (although i did phrase it as a question).
so, yes, a performance can be undocumented, but if it doesn't have an audience either, then what's the point?
why bother? unless you just do it for yourself, in which case i don't think it's really a performance any more.
i don't really see how the description itself is a performance - do you see it as one? if so, how so?
hi just to say, i didn't see biggi's comment before i left mine - so sorry to seemingly ignore it!
Hey Tom,
no probs...
it's actually interesting to compare them...
:-) Biggi
i kind agree with biggi ,
for me is story telling , story telling i can ber performative as it perform a role but is not neccessary performance .
that was franko
there is so much to answer to now
i repeat what i said to Tom in regard to his postTom,if it is sometimes better "not to know "i would like to reiterate your question to me. in in answering it you will have a bit of my answer..."what is the point?"
because i am uneasy with questions like that as with "what does it mean" there is no point and there is no meaning outside of the act/object itself. (is performance and object? Is a story?
xx
does it matter if something is performed or watched or documented( i do not know the answer.)
something else...stroy telling is a strange activity isnt it? Everything we do seems to be telling a story.
i will think more about this now.
this performance has not taken place yet and the two folk i wrote about have been involved in its "framing" so does it "Qualify?"
for me the point in making my work is in experimenting, in developing ideas and in communicating. i have no problem with the result being open to interpretation or difficult to read, i think it can often be boring if it's too straight forward. sometimes it's better for people not to know because not knowing enables them to interprate it freely and to come up with their own ideas, without being imposed on too much. knowing too much can kill the intrigue.
i thought you were asking about the notion of an unrecorded performance without an audience, and i was questioning what the point would be in that, specifically in terms of a piece of 'art', because surely it couldn't communicate if there was no audience or record of it. i think your story was something else though, and i wasn't asking what the point was in that because it is recorded and it does have an audience.
this is my answer, it is not yours. even if you think the same thing, you can't just say that your response is whatever i would say!
Hey again,
I must say now I am getting really confused. This seems now like a ping-pong game to me but maybe my brain isn't really switched on yet.
So, do I understand it right that your performance (?) hasn't taken place yet? In that case it is story telling and not even documentation.
In my opinion you can't tell a performance in advance. Every single performance is different and as much as you try to predict and plan its outcome there will always be an unpredictable surprise element to it.
I think the most important thing is to be clear about what you are doing now? We often are not sure what we are trying to do when we experiment and do our research but I get the feeling that you are not clear about your research either? Is it possible that you are not honest to yourself about what you are trying to do? Or maybe a bit differently expressed: do you think you might be doing your research without questioning it and actually depending on what other people think - rather than trusting yourself? I think everybody has or has had that approach to some extend and I am certainly often catching myself doing that.
Just some thought ... what do you think? Might that be an option? xx
i am not sure what biggi means by "research". i hope i am being as honest as i can be with myself. i would say in experimenting with ideas about performance and storytelling i would agree with Tom (if there is a point) it is in "experimenting, in developing ideas and in communicating" but you couls ask again well what is the point in that, ad infinitum. i think really the first point is in doing something for its own sake, in the first instance, and the point in that would be in the experimentation (why?) ultimately it is to make the world a fit place to live in and for humans to develop i think. that is why i do what i do.
simply i think a performance is different from something just happening because those involved define the event as performance. it is a matter of consciousness.
i feel art is something done with artistic consciousness.
i dont want to get even more complicated but i am wondering where performance art meets/intersects with conceptual art. i am also wondering about concrete poetry here. i think i will do some reading...
regarding the point Biggi made about questioning research i am inclined to think of any research as the questioning. what am i missing here? i am wondering if i should perhaps have done two answers one to tom one to Biggi but i havent done that so we are all involved and not just me to each on a one to one.
x
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