Image as a trace of action: Recording activist performance art

Abstract

This paper looks at performance in the context of activism and digital video documentation in which performers' corporeality and the scenic space are mediated through video and online video sharing platforms such as YouTube. It aims to define the ways digital video materializes the body of the performer in front of the camera and how this corporeality is translated to the spectator. Despite all technical possibilities provided by digital technology, it is the degraded, low-fi amateur aesthetics of the digital image that reveals the political in the piece by engaging the viewer. We analyze a number of contemporary performance artworks (Art Group Voina, Philip Huang, 0100101110101101.org - Eva and Franco Mattes). This paper closes with a discussion about the paradigm between the representation of body in social space, legibility of the image, compressed aesthetics and online video circulation.