Comparison of artefacts of the installation/performance DAY-N by Mio Chareteau (artist, Geneva), on 8 October 2011 during the conference Recollecting the Act: On the transmission of performance art at Kaserne Basel
A) Synopsis of the performance DAY-N
The installation/performance DAY-N by Mio Chareteau in the Rosstall of Kaserne Basel lasted eight hours. The performer counted every second of it in French. Kneeling on the floor, she spoke the seconds into a microphone attached to a headset. After each minute counted, she wrote the numbers one to 60 on a metal bar lying next to her on the floor, and after 60 minutes she stood the bar vertically on a flat stand and fixed a speaker to it. Her voice, recorded in a loop, could be heard out of this speaker, counting the seconds. This sequence of actions was repeated until a total of eight metal bars had been erected and had speakers attached to them.[1]
B) Selection of artefact types
I have selected three artefact types for analysis: first, an oral statement by Irene Mueller, recollecting the performance, which was audio-recorded on 17 March 2012. This eyewitness report was made six months after the performance. Secondly, I consider a written account by Brigitte Mauerhofer, based on her subjective eyewitness report, which was published on 13 October 2011 on the archiv performativ blog.[2] The account was written during the live event and revised later. And thirdly, I consider a written record of an oral account by Harald Kraemer, given at the end of the conference on 8 October 2011. This personal résumé of the entire programme of the last day of the conference was commissioned by the organisers and written down for reference. It mentions the work of Mio Chareteau in a few sentences; this passage is considered below. All three artefacts are subjective oral or written transmission-fragments of the DAY-N performance and form the basis of my analysis. Further artefacts, such as video recordings or visual material in the form of photographs, were deliberately not selected in order to focus exclusively on the information communicated by these oral and written eyewitness reports.
C) Similarities/differences in transmission and transcription by the two recording methods in view of the constituent aspects of the performance
On account of their medial similarities and the authors’ subjective interpretations, the artefacts offer varied insights into the work DAY-N. By means of oral language, or language translated into writing, they give precise information about different aspects of the performance. Since this artefact type does not contain any visual material, this element of the performance is left up to the reader’s imagination. The written artefacts represent two different approaches: Brigitte Mauerhofer’s ‘text piece’ (Textstück) is intended as a literary impression and Harald Kraemer communicates a subjective and interpretative view of the performance. Both texts bear witness to a distinct process of reflection and abstraction which is, however, articulated differently in each.
Another approach is evidenced in Irene Mueller’s 20-minute oral statement in which she very vividly recalls her experience of the performance six months after the event. Irene Mueller’s statement is based on her graphic memories of the live moment and it conveys the setting and the course of the performance in close detail: “Then Mio sat down next to the first bar, crouched, knelt on the floor. You could see that she was moving her lips; she was speaking very softly into the microphone on her headset. They were very rhythmic lip movements. At some point you also saw that she was drawing kind of regular lines on the bar again and again. Then it became clear she was counting as well. And if you went up very close, right at the beginning, or later, if you listened to the speakers, you could hear that she was counting the seconds, so always up to sixty. Then she drew a line or maybe she had already drawn the line. But just marking the minute, she counted the minute out in seconds and then she started again, going back to one. Just that, really, until she had done the whole hour. Then she took off her headset and played the recording through the technology on the speakers. That is to say, stood the bar up, fixed it on this stand, put the speaker on it and then the first acoustically stored, recorded impression of her action in the last hour was audible.”[3] Irene Mueller’s eyewitness report conveys the course of the performance and remembers details which make the account vivid and the subjectivity of what it conveys clear. Her approach follows narrative forms which are also encountered in Oral History.
For me, the different approaches taken in these written and oral eyewitness reports, in which the authors consider different fragmentary aspects of the performance, represent DAY-N as a whole. The main aspects of the performance were, on the one hand, the unbroken physical presence of the performer over a period of eight hours, plus the extended spatial presence generated by her voice coming out of the speakers, and the installation setting created by the materials and media used. And, on the other hand, the audience at Rosstall 1 of the Kaserne, who had the opportunity to attend the entire eight-hour performance. In keeping with Angelika Nollert’s definition, this work by Mio Chareteau can be described as a ‘performative installation’[4] because the event character and the representation of presence play equally central roles in it.[5] As is shown in the artefacts by the different authors, Mio Chareteau realised this ‘performative installation’ by translating the time of its duration into a chronological sequence, hence making it a subject of the work. A medial translation was manifested hourly via the speakers and the loop function allowed Chareteau’s previous counting to intersect with the present moment over the course of the eight hours.
In his account, Harald Kraemer refers to the temporal dimension of DAY-N as follows: “Mio Chareteau performs the painstaking work of a chronicler who meticulously documents the flow of time as it passes. 1 second – 1 minute – 1 hour – 1 working day. ‘Without anger or passion’. A process of contemplative continuity becomes an installation which for one evening captures the simultaneity in disjointedness; for the duration of an evening, makes the transience of our actions visible and teaches us that we finite beings can never document the infinite.”[6]
Brigitte Mauerhofer’s literary impressions describe the atmosphere of the live moment in short, precise sentences. In the following extract she focuses on the performer’s concentration and aura: “From time to time, a change in sitting position. Arms crossed over her left knee. Jeans, black shoes, dark, long-sleeved T-shirt with a V-neck. Now right knee on the floor, left knee squatting. She looks at the floor. Asian-looking facial features. Do they correspond with words like humility? Concentration? Silence? Seven bare, black, speaker roundels are set up in neat rows on metal stands ...”[7] The mood created by the artist’s presence can be imagined from this account. The following quote gives a precise description of the author, allowing the reader to draw inferences about the performative installation/performance. “Right at the back in the corner of the Rossstall, a woman, between 20 and 30, is kneeling on the floor, speaking French into a headset that bends left around her ear, neck, near her chin. She is kneeling and speaking. On the right next to her is a metal bar. Minute by minute by minute, precisely timed, the woman writes a number in chalk on the metal bar. [...] now kneeling with both legs, 7 stands are connected to cables. All that is there of the eighth is the stand and the number bar. It is described by the woman speaking. At the end of every minute with the subsequent number.”[8] On the one hand, this description by Brigitte Mauerhofer allows the reader to conceptualise the acoustic level of the performance, manifested in the number sequences it records, which in turn reflect the performative element of the performance as the counting makes the time tangible. On the other hand, this literary transcription of the performance is itself a performative act[9] since it not only refers to the activity of writing directly at the moment of performance but also presents the author’s own artistic interpretation. This is made clear as follows: “She speaks French numbers in a low voice, she kneels and speaks, second by second by second, precisely timed, quarante un, quarante deux, quarante trois ... You hear a speaker roundel parade. Rolling rows of numbers from every roundel, another in time, slightly staggered 47, 48, 4, ... 32, 33, 34 ... 7, 8, 9, ... 44, 45, ... 25, 26, 27, ... 12, 13, 14, ... 57, 58, 59, 60, 1, 2, 3, ...”[10] The literary style of this description makes the performer’s quiet counting of the seconds easily imaginable and allows the reader to grasp the sensory perceptibility of the time involved. In this eyewitness report, Brigitte Mauerhofer taps into her personal and communicative memories and records her subjective impressions of the live moment.
Irene Mueller also remembers the physical presence of the artist, which she describes as follows: “[...] the other image or the other memory is this immense calm and concentration that she embodied. That she radiated too. She is a very delicate, dainty person and this actual sitting on the floor, so being where this bar is too, and being there with a quite concentrated look, the whole time the counting is there. So actually measuring and changing space and time with her body, but also with her voice. Well, that is something that really stayed with me.”[11] This statement demonstrates the immediacy of the oral language and the affective dimension which is conveyed by Irene Mueller’s account. It should be noted here that every eyewitness report – as a process of remembering and translating memories into spoken language – is associative and hence has a fragmentary and situative function.
Mauerhofer’s ‘text piece’ conveys the author’s subjective impression via the audience in attendance and is an example of a literary transcription which taps into the individual memories and experience of the author: “’No Exit’ it says on the sign in front of the way out. A reminder, a request, to stop at the very back corner of the Rossstall. Its apertures reveal themselves at the same height as the mouths, ears, necks of the listeners, the onlookers, the curious. A man bends down, cocks his ear, a woman stands comfortably in front of one and looks straight ahead at it. Who is listening to whom? Barely a drinks glass, a place of calm. The cameraman on the prowl, crouches in the corner and films the woman who, posing immobile, continues to speak. No layering, building up, outrage, breaking down. No troubled waters to pour oil on. More curiosity is roused. Silence. A woman leaves the room by the ‘No Exit’ gate. Applause. She comes in, bows discreetly, reserved, and smiles.” [12]
Sigrid Schade and Silke Wenk propose in their book Studien zur visuellen Kultur that the point of concepts of ‘collective’ or ‘social’ memory is “to presuppose the historicity and the social framing of all processes of remembering, which by no means only concern ‘historical facts’ but also policies of remembering.”[13] According to Schade / Wenk, memory research has found that policies of remembering “are well aware of the connections between historically specific constellations, the power and interest policies of dominant social groups and memory constructions”[14] . It should be noted that, in this case, the author transcribes the performance DAY-N from a subjective and personal viewpoint. The text is linked to a process of remembering which should be regarded as an individual act of literary realisation, which can be read by a specific social group and in a pre-defined context.
D) Analysis and transcriptions
In her essay “Performance im medialen Wandel”, Petra Maria Meyer points out: “There can be no doubt that the manner in which something is made apparent or portrayed is in direct reciprocal action with the changing media [landscape]. Where the focus is on ‘performance of something’, the performative body, which appears and acts in different [forms of] materiality or immateriality, can be regarded as a medium.”[15] The oral and written eyewitness reports on DAY-N by Mio Chareteau contain very precise descriptions of the performance’s modalities. The numbers spoken in French by the performer, which are amplified by the speakers, can thus be considered a medial embodiment of the performance (like the artefacts too).[16]
‘Artefacts’, according to Philip Auslander, are the elements which, beyond the act of documenting, constitute the event of a performance in the first place.[17] This premise supports every form of the documentation and transcription of performance art: the artefacts selected here are examples of the character of DAY-N. According to Aleida Assmann, text plays a central role in this as an ‘immortalising medium’ (“Verewigungsmedium”)[18] and an aide memoire, since the process of writing down and inscribing it involves allows it to be read as a medium and metaphor of memory. “Although, however, the act of writing and engraving is analogous to memory, so much so that it may be considered the most important metaphor of memory, the medium of writing has also been regarded as an antipode, opponent and destroyer of memory.”[19] This hypothesis is based on the premise that oral transmission, with respect to its meaning and the authenticity of the message it conveys, cannot be surpassed, as Plato once noted.[20] I would like to add that the two artefact types considered here, using both spoken and written language, provide a combination which renders the performance DAY-N both fragmentarily and comprehensively.
All three artefacts represent subjective forms of transcription. Brigitte Mauerhofer’s ‘text piece’ can be read as an act of writing which, since it generates a certain immediacy and evokes affective moments, can be considered a ‘performative’ or ‘artistic’ text form . ‘Text piece’ excites the reader’s imagination and involves them emotionally, retrospectively conveying the feeling of experiencing the performance. In the written and oral eyewitness reports examined here, we can read the authors’ individual capacities for remembering the installation-performance DAY-N by Mio Chareteau.
Margarit von Büren, May 2012
[1] This brief description is based on my experience attending the DAY-N performance as part of the conference Recollecting the Act. A more detailed description is not necessary for this case study because the artefact types selected describe the performance very precisely.
[2] Cf. http://archivperformativ.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/textstuck-von-brigitte-mauerhofer/ (called up on 22.5.2012).
[3] Translated from the German:”Mio hat sich dann neben die erste Stange gesetzt, gehockt, am Boden gekniet. Man hat gesehen, sie bewegt die Lippen, sie spricht ganz leise in das Mikrofon von ihrem Headset. Das waren sehr rhythmische Lippenbewegungen. Irgendwann hat man dann auch gesehen, sie macht immer wieder so regelmässig Striche auf der Stange. Es wurde dann auch klar, sie zählt. Und wenn man sehr nahe rangegangen ist, ganz am Anfang, oder später, wenn man den Lautsprechern zugehört hatte, hat man genau gehört, dass sie Sekunden zählt, also immer bis sechzig. Dann machte sie einen Strich oder vielleicht hat sie auch davor den Strich gemacht. Aber einfach die Markierung von der Minute, sie hat die Minute auf der Sekundenebene ausgezählt und dann hat sie wieder bei eins angefangen. Das eigentlich, bis sie die Stunde voll hatte. Dann hat sie das Headset abgesetzt und dann die Aufnahme via Technik auf den Lautsprecher ausgegeben. Also sprich, die Stange aufgestellt, auf dieser Platte fixiert, den Lautsprecher draufgesetzt und dann war der erste akustisch gespeicherte, aufgezeichnete Niederschlag von ihrer Handlung der letzten Stunde hörbar.“ Irene Müller, audio recording of an eyewitness report of 17.3.12 of the performance DAY-N, Mio Chareteau, 8.10.11 , Kaserne Basel, Recollecting the Act conference.
[4] Cf. Nollert, Angelika (ed.), Performative Installation, Snoeck, Cologne 2003, p. 9. Nollert writes: “The event nature of performativity (the moment, the here and now) is tied in with the materiality of an installation in the sense of a simultaneity of action and experience. Performativity is a constituent part of an installation. The installation generates performativity.” [“Die Ereignishaftigkeit der Performativität (der Moment, das Jetzt) wird in die Materialität einer Installation gebunden, im Sinne einer Simultanität von Handlung und Erfahrung. Die Performativität ist für die Installation konstituierend. Die Installation generiert erst die Performativität.“]
[5] Cf. Nollert, op. cit. fn 3, p. 13.
[6] Translated from the German:”Mio Chareteau leistet die knüppelharte Arbeit einer Chronistin, welche den hierbei verflossenen Zeitstrom akribisch dokumentiert. 1 Sekunde – 1 Minute – 1 Stunde – 1 Arbeitstag. ‘Ohne Zorn und Eifer’. Aus einem Prozess kontemplativer Kontinuität wird eine Installation, die für einen Abend die Gleichzeitigkeit in der Ungleichzeitigkeit festhält. Einen Abend lang das Vergängliche unseres Tuns sichtbar macht und uns lehrt, dass wir Endliche nie das Unendliche dokumentieren können.“ Kraemer, Harald, Response to the conference Recollecting the Act, Kaserne Basel, 8.10.11.
[7] Translated from the German: “Von Zeit zu Zeit ein Wechsel der Sitzposition. Die Arme über das linke Knie verschränkt. Jeans, schwarze Schuhe, dunkles, langärmliges Shirt mit V-Ausschnitt. Nun rechtes Knie am Boden, linkes Knie am Kauern. Sie blickt zu Boden. Asiatisch wirkende Gesichtszüge. Passen sie zu den Wörtern wie Demut? Konzentration? Stille? Sieben schwarze nackte Lautsprecherrondellen stehen in Reih und Glied auf Metallständern ...“ Mauerhofer, Brigitte, Textstück (text piece) Mio Chareteau, 13.10.11, (http://archivperformativ.wordpress.com/category/brigitte-mauerhofer-schreibprojekt/, called up on 21.3.12).
[8] Translated from the German: “Zuhinterst in der Ecke des Rossstalls kniet eine Frau, zwischen 20 und 30, auf dem Boden, spricht französische Zahlen in ein Headset, das ihr links um Ohr, den Hals, nahe des Kinns bügelt. Sie kniet und spricht. Rechts neben ihr leigt ein Metallstab. Minute um Minute um Minute präzise getaktet, schreibt die Frau mit Kreide eine Zahl auf den Metallstab. [...] inzwischen auf beiden Beinen knieend, 7 Ständer sind angekabelt. Vom achten bleibt der Sockel und der Zahlenstab. Er lässt sich von der Sprecherin beschreiben. Nach jeder Minute mit der nächstfolgenden Zahl.“ Mauerhofer, Brigitte, op. cit. fn 6.
[9] The term ‘ performativity’ is derived from John L. Austin’s speech act theory, among other things. Austin first advanced the theory that statements are performative if they complete an action by naming it in 1962. This originally linguistic application of ‘performativity’ was adopted by Cultural Studies and art theory and has been broadly discussed in performance art – and in some spheres, over-used – since the ‘90s. Cf. Austin, John Langshaw, How to Do Things with Words, Harvard 1975.
[10] Translated from the German: “Sie spricht mit gedämpfter Stimme französische Zahlen, sie kniet und spricht, Sekunde um Sekunde, präzise getaktet, quarante un, quarante deux, quarante trois ... Man hört eine Lautsprecherrondellenparade. Rollende Zahlenreihen aus jeder Rondelle, eine andere im Gleichrhythmus, leicht verschoben 47, 48, 49, ... 32, 33, 34 ... 7, 8, 9, ... 44, 45, ... 25, 26, 27, ... 12, 13, 14, ... 57, 58, 59, 60, 1, 2, 3, ...“ Mauerhofer, Brigitte, op. cit. fn 6.
[11] Translated from the German: “[...] das andere Bild oder die andere Erinnerung ist diese immense Ruhe und Konzentration, die sie verkörpert hat. Die sie ausgestrahlt hat auch. Sie ist eine sehr feine, zierliche Person und dieses auch wirklich am Boden Sitzen, also dort sein, wo diese Stange auch ist, und da eigentlich mit einem ganz konzentrierten Blick, die ganze Zeit das Zählen da ist. Also eigentlich mit dem Körper, aber auch mit der Stimme Raum und Zeit ausmessen und verändern. Also das ist etwas, was mir sehr stark geblieben ist.“ Müller, Irene, op. cit. fn 2.
[12] Translated from the German: “’Kein Durchgang’ liest man auf dem Schild vor dem Ausgang. Ein Hinweis, eine Aufforderung, Halt zu machen zuhinterst in der Ecke des Rossstalls. Ihre Öffnungen offenbaren sich auf gleicher Höhe wie Münder, Ohren, Hälse der Zuhörenden, der Hingehenden, der Neugierigen. Ein Mann beugt sich nach unten, hält sein Ohr hin, eine Frau steht bequem davor und schaut frontal hinein. Wer lauscht wem? Kaum Getränkegläser, ein Ort der Ruhe. Der Kameramann auf der Lauer, kauert in der Ecke und filmt die Frau, die in unbewegter Pose weiterspricht. Kein Schichten, Auftürmen, Aufbegehren, Zusammenbrechen. Keine Wogen, die es zu glätten gibt. Weitere Neugier kommt hinzu. Stille. Durch das Kein Durchgang-Tor verlässt eine Frau den Raum. Applaus. Sie kommt hinein, verbeugt sich diskret, zurückhaltend und lächelt.“ Mauerhofer, Brigitte, op. cit.
[13] Translated from the German: “...von der Historizität und der sozialen Rahmung aller Erinnerungsprozesse auszugehen, wobei es keineswegs nur um ‘historische Fakten’ geht, sondern auch um Erinnerungspolitiken.“ Schade, Sigrid / Wenk, Silke, Studien zur visuellen Kultur. Einführung in ein transdisziplinäres Forschungsfeld, Transkript, Bielefeld 2011, p. 124.
[14] Translated from the German: “”...der Zusammenhänge zwischen historisch spezifischen Konstellationen, Macht- und Interessenspolitiken dominanter gesellschaftlischer Gruppen und Gedächtniskonstruktionen durchaus bewusst“, Schade, Sigrid / Wenk, Silke, op. cit. p. 126.
[15] Translated from the German: “Es steht ausser Frage, dass die Art und Weise, mit der etwas zur Erscheinung gebracht oder zur Darstellung gebracht wird, in direkter Wechselwirkung mit dem medialen Wandel steht. Wo der Fokus auf ‚Performance of something‘ gerichtet wird, lässt auch der performative Körper, der in unterschiedlicher Materialität oder Immaterialität auftritt und agiert, als Medium verstehen.“ Meyer, Petra Maria (ed.), Performance im medialen Wandel, Wilhelm Fink, Munich 2006, p. 36ff.
[16] Cf. Nollert, Angelika, op. cit. fn 3, p. 13. According to Nollert’s definition, her work can be classified as an installation – implying a course of action which produces a result – by the concepts of ‘Einrichten’ (arranging, installing) and ‘Einsetzen’ (using, putting into action). An installation is visible as a three-dimensional ‘structure’, which forms a connection with the space and a relation between the artist and the audience. The event duration of over eight hours, during which the installation is constituted, is central.
[17] Cf. Auslander, Philip, “On the Performativity of Performance Documentation”, in: Barbara Clausen / Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (eds.), After the Act. The (Re)Production of Performance Art, Verlag für Moderne Kunst, Nuremberg 2006, p. 27.
[18] Assmann, Aleida, Erinnerungsräume, Formen und Wandlungen des kulturellen Gedächtnisses, Beck, Munich 2009, p. 184.
[19] Translated from the German: “Obwohl der Gestus des Schreibens und Gravierens dem Gedächtnis so analog ist, dass er als wichtigste Gedächtnismetapher gelten kann, ist das Medium Schrift auch als Antipode, als Widersacher und Zerstörer des Gedächtnisses gesehen worden.“ Assmann, Aleida, op. cit. fn 18, p. 185.
[20] Assmann, Aleida, op. cit. fn 18, p. 185.
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