Practice as Research PhD projects

O'Brien: Sarah | UK, Lancaster

"CREATING THE SUBJECT: TOWARDS A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE USE OF VIDEO IN PERFORMANCE"

Lancaster University, Department of Theatre Studies

Abstract:

Beginning with Josette Féral's understanding of performance (1992) and Rosalind Krauss' rules for video art practice (1976) this thesis examines through practice the varying and often conflicting approaches of the video image in performance, which serve to promote and express different understandings of the nature of subjectivity. Up until and during the mid 1970s performance (or performance art), according to Féral, was said to have a 'function' and this function, following Artaud, was to rid performance of representation in favour of presentation (1992). Performance therefore investigated the nature of what it was to be present (including being present to oneself) and thus what constitutes the subject. Féral states that the use of the video image in performance can serve to promote a rejection of representation and work towards finding the 'truth' of the subject (1982). In an article written on video art in 1976, Rosalind Krauss offers three 'phenomena' for a practice of video that promote the physical space (or acts) of the viewer (including the materiality of the video image itself) over what it represents. This 'Kraussian' practice of video rebels against the representational status of the video image and its usual eclipsing of the space of the viewer. Using Krauss' ideas in performance therefore serve to promote a particular attitude towards subjectivity and the nature of the subject prevalent in art in the 1970s. However, applying these Kraussian techniques to performance practice suggests that there are other techniques that may work against this particular promotion of subjectivity. Indeed, there are many discussions about the various approaches to using the video image and the implications these have for expressing or understanding the subject but these discussions are fragmented and distributed across several sub-disciplines. Starting from the ideas of Féral and Krauss, this thesis works towards bringing these usually disparate ideas about the use of video in performance together in one theoretical framework work in order to produce a coherent and substantive body of work on the use and analysis of the video image in performance.

Completion: September 2005 (submission only)

Institution: Dept Theatre Studies, Lancaster University.

Supervisor: Elaine Aston

Examiners: Geraldine Harris (int.) Robin Nelson (ext.)

Candidate: Sarah O'Brien