This post reflects on our visit to an exhibition that showcases the use of advanced technologies – and partnerships with industry – to preserve, research, and access cultural heritage.
Join us at the College Art Association Annual Conference on March 3
Join us for the CAA panel "Conserving Performance, Performing Conservation" on Thursday, March 3, at 9:00 a.m. CST / 4:00 p.m. CET.
The iconic image: a conversation with Philip Auslander
Recently, our team met with Philip Auslander, an influential performance scholar who has argued that performance documentation is not merely a passive afterimage of a live act, but rather can be seen to partially – in some cases, even wholly – determine a performance’s reception and thus actively shapes what we understand the performance to be. Such documentation, Auslander argues, is itself “performative.”
Performing the Bauhaus
What role does architecture play in choreographing performance – both the actions of the performer, and the reception of their audience? How do the spaces we inhabit affect our movements and behavior?
Call for papers: Conserving performance, performing conservation
Submit an abstract to our upcoming (online) session at the College Art Association's annual conference! Theoretical, art historical, practice-based and experimental contributions are all welcome.
Exploring anarchival materiality with Kate Hennessy
The idea of "anarchival materiality" – which probes how rebellious and fugitive media might help reveal the histories and biases of anthropology – seems a promising approach to the documentation of performance.
The conservability of performance: Two events and their afterlives
In recent weeks, our research project hosted its first two public events: the two-day colloquium “Performance: The Ethics and the Politics of Care — # 1. Mapping the Field,” and “Living Materials: Ethics and Principles for Embodied Stewardship,” an in-depth conversation between Cori Olinghouse and Megan Metcalf. Julia reflects on what we learned from these events, and how that knowledge will endure and change in the future.
Michaela Schäuble, with and without a camera
We anticipated a scintillating and productive discussion with anthropologist and filmmaker Michaela Schäuble when we met with her in April. That assumption proved entirely correct – but other assumptions we held about the contemporary practice of anthropology, and Schäuble’s own approach to documentation, were turned inside-out. (Photograph by Anja Dreschke.)
Memory and/as preservation: a conversation with Rivka Eisner
As an art historian, I am used to thinking of memory as something that must be captured in another medium – text, video, etc. – in order to be preserved. But perhaps memory itself can be a form of preservation.
Call for proposals – Performance: The Ethics and the Politics of Care
Submit a paper for presentation at our colloquium in May, "Performance: The Ethics and the Politics of Care – #1. Mapping the Field."