The Host Clubs’[1] participatory discussion format allowed us to discuss ways of dealing with performance art and its artefacts and the parameters of a living archive practice with selected experts and interested guests. These discussion events served on the one hand as an instrument for networking and communication and, on the other hand, as a way of testing our research questions. Three Host Clubs were held to discuss the following central issues: how collections / archives and users deal with documentation methods and artefacts, the relationship between the live moment and its ‘documentability’, and the significance of the latter.
The Host Clubs confirmed what we had assumed to be true about preferences for certain transmission media: the individual, personally coloured report, such as we find in oral accounts, recorded eyewitness reports and subjectively formulated texts, was attributed a high transmission potential. This brought the aspect of the linguistic ‘reproduction’ or transcription of performance into focus. For this reason, a separate written project in the sense of an extended documentation practice was launched as part of the model archive and conference.
[1] Host Clubs are staged discussion performances hosted by presenter-moderators. Participants sit at tables and discuss issues put forward by the presenter. While the course of the discussion is moderated, its explicit development – the nature of communication, the intensity of interaction – is determined by the audience. The open atmosphere enables the public to engage in various models of participation, ranging from giving concrete input to expressing lively interest to purely observing. Marcel Schwald developed this discussion format in 2008 for various venues in Basel. Archiv performativ held the following Host Clubs to discuss project-specific issues: Host Club 1 (26.8.2010) and Host Club 2 (10.12.2010) in Kaskadenkondensator, Basel; Host Club 3 (24.6.2011) in the Klingental exhibition space, Basel.
