The international symposium From Performance to Action and Back Again focuses on the complex relation between performance art and documentation. How are performances documented? How can documentation be more than mere registration? Artists and scholars enter the discussion during a varied programme with performances and lectures.
“In the solos, either doing or whilst watching, I work things out. Or I work things through I think it through thoughts and ideas. In the group and it is different. I explore a define. I explore voice and composition and I explore the effect of the body position on the voice production. And I define my place or aural space in the group. And this is forever changing, fluctuating. I take joy hearing and being surprised by the others, the voices, what turns they take, what qualities are discovered and explored. My attention oscillates me , then, you, me, you, me, me, me, me, you, you, body, breath… I set goals or tasks for myself physically responding to the others and also vocal exploration tracks. Go somewhere and discover a new sound or feeling or try to find something back and realise the folly of that. The work and the compromise of that work. That reflection to find something back from a memory. A feeling of how it was produced, (the sound) or a memory of how it sounded. And it sounded very different in its new context of the new now. I drone sometimes to feel myself. And to concentrate on the other voice. I use percussive sound as a grouping device. Today I was feeling the difference between doing for doing’s sake and research. Looking or searching for something or at least setting myself off on a path of research. I need the path to follow and begin and wandering off and discovery I like to find knowledge. I like to be, and then discover whilst looking for something else. I need the task. I want the task. I enjoy creating the task. The discovery of death not being an out-breath or a leaving, but inversely as an in-breath, a closing down, retreating. A going into oneself, a disappearing.” Caroline