Site generic is public art that is transportable, it's not specific to the exact place and it's exact histories, it's is based on a place that is normally a non-place, something that is everywhere.
Like a train station.
'Do you want to get married?' could have happened anywhere.
The project could have happened anywhere with archaic architecure, anywhere that had that sort of picturesque look.
For that reason 'Do you want to get married?' is a Site Generic performance.
The piece really doesn't need the archway (The Bargate) at all, it could work anywhere.
But having the architecture and the structure there have the piece itself a structure and aesthetic - a form.
It created an image.
Site Responsive or Site Sympathetic is a step away from tasks, performances and installations that can just be placed in any site.
Site Responsive work takes into account the culture, the history, and the aesthetic of a space and utilises these factors.
Site Responsive performance however isn't necessarily exclusive to its chosen site.
"Whether inside the white cube or out in the Nevada dessert, whether architectural or landscape-orientated, site-specific art initially took the site as an actual location, a tangible reality, its identity composed of a unique combination of physical elements: length, depth, height, texture, and shape of walks and rooms" (Kwon, 2002: 11) etc.
"Site-specific art, whether interruptive of assimilative, gave itself up to its environmental context, being formally determined or directed by it."
(Kwon, 2002: 11)
And that's what 'ParkArt' intended to do.
The sound and voice clips give the audience and the public a group voice, a collective insight on what they think the park is and what they use the park for.
The performance could not have happened without the mound being the pinnacle point.
The voices could not have been played anywhere else.
We worked with the history and mostly with the now of the park.
What people wanted.
"A provisional conclusion might be that in advanced art practices of the past thirty years the operative definition of the site has been transformed from a physical location - grounded, fixed, actual - to a discursive vector - ungrounded, fluid, virtual." (Kwon, 2002: 29)
Documentation and Performance
Many performances under the large umbrella of site-specific work are documented to account for the performance; to evidence the performance/installation.
By archiving their work the artists can prove the existence of their work and also document the work creatively so the performance can perform again and reach a secondary audience or even their first as many pieces now are purely documentation.
These performances, under Auslander's terms, are catergorised as 'Theatrical'.
Vito Acconci. Blinks, Nov 23,1969; afternoon. Photo-Piece, Greenwich Street, NYC; Kodak Instamatic 124, b/w film.
Vito Acconci (U.S., b. 1940) Blinking Piece. 1969 Gelatin silver prints and ink on index cards with typed text on paper3 3/8 x 3 3/8 in. image size; 25 1/16 x 59 1/2 in. board sizeCourtesy of Acconci Studio
Auslander talks of “a performance by Vito Acconci entitled Photo-Piece (1969) that raises some trenchant questions about the relationship between performance and documentation.” (Auslander, 2006: 4)
In this piece, Acconci had to take a picture every time he blinked whilst travelling down a city street.
He had the camera faced away from him.
The photographs proved the existence of Acconci’s actions but not “in the traditional manner, however, because they do not actually show Acconci performing.” (Auslander, 2006: 4)
Acconci is indeed performing actions but is not performing to an audience.
His documentation within this piece acts as the performance “because the photographs were produced as (or perhaps by) the performance (rather than of the performance).” (Auslander, 2006: 4).
Auslander describes this piece as more ‘Theatrical’ than ‘Documentary’ due to the fact it’s only through Acconci’s documentation that his performance exists.
Site-Specific
In Auslander’s terms, therefore, ‘My Neighbourhood Walk’ acts in the same way as Acconci’s.
It is only through the pictures I took every hour and the writings of my experiences and thoughts that prove my actions and turn them into a performance for a member of public to read and observe.
However both 'Free Hope Here' and ‘Do you want to get married?’
were live interactive performances and a video acts as the documentation and shows the event from its own perspective, acting only as a 'Documentary' documentation as they are not in the space experiencing the event with the artists or the initial audience.
The majority of 'ParkArt's documentation is 'Documentary' of the event itself, however 'Priory Park's ParkArt' is a photo-documentation of the publics artwork whilst participating within the event, that are performative in their own right. An audience didn't get to experience and learn information of the artist's as we did. The documentation of the event has altered within this photo-documentation giving its own performativity.
“In the end, the only significant difference between the documentary and theatrical modes of performance documentation is ideological: the assumption that in the former mode, the event is staged and primarily for an immediately present audience and that the documentation is a secondary, supplementary record of an event that has its own prior integrity.” (Auslander, 2006: 3/4)
The digital world allows artists, such as myself, document a live performance, document an installation and document anything, through video, audio and images.
I am able to share my projects over the Internet.
I am able to capture something ephemeral and display it for the secondary audience.
No, the experience will not be the same, but it will be available.
The digital world allows me to archive my works and share them.
These views were expressed whilst Tim Etchells was at a conference on documentation and performance by Lancaster University and the Centre for Performance Research.
"That documentation of live events is an attempt at capture, a dragging down of the ephemeral onto the fossilising mud of all that is fixed and fixing."
(Etchells, 1999: 71)
""That in giving way to documents (and analysis) artists are losing hold of their work"
(Etchells, 1999: 71)