When we started work on the research project, we used the concept of ‘keeping alive’ (Lebendighalten) the documents of performances. During the course of our work, however, our focus shifted towards transmitting and transcribing them, or interpreting them further. In our opinion, artefacts should not be considered for the sole purpose of ‘reconstructing’ performances as faithfully and realistically as possible but for trying out and analysing various theoretical and artistic methods and strategies of transmitting, or re-interpreting, performance art. By transcriptions, we understand re-enactments, re-performances and other artistic strategies of appropriation, which are also methods of transmitting, as well as the production of artefacts/documents. These methods generate different forms and intensity levels of transmission: from historical faithfulness to the ‘original’ in re-enactment via interpretative translation in re-performance to re-formulation, or transformation, in an artistic work. By the term ‘re-inscribing’ we mean the obvious eclipsing of a specific, intentional aspect of a work. This means that (one or more of) the formerly constituent elements of a performance – for example, a concept with a concrete reference to a historical context – are no longer recognisable or readable in an artefact or transcription.
In the course of the project, we agreed on certain categories of performance genre which are strongly oriented towards the idea and form of performance. The terms defining these play an important role for the structured utilisation of those artefacts which were entered into the media archive of the ZHdK. At the same time, exemplary performance database entries are in this way made available to other users of the archive.