The "performative archive" project fills a gap in the research domain between performance and documentation. It makes a fundamental contribution to current debates on time-based art and the extent to which it can be archived, incorporating the current theoretical discourse on documentation methods from related domains, and retaining strong links to practice.
In order to remain relevant as a medium for onward transmission, archives must be actively "owned", as well as being able to provoke action. This applies to all archives, but particularly to the archive documentation and transmission of performance art, a process that the performative archive project addresses as an interactive relationship between documentation and re-enactment, developing an exemplary model that gives artistic practice a higher status within this relationship than is normally the case. The project understands performance art – as discussed since the 1990s – as a form embracing practices of production, reception, archiving, research and public education. In her work "Performance Remains", published in 2001, about the work of Judith Butler, the American performance theorist R. Schneider notes that performance art is specifically characterized by the fact that it manifests and recalls contingent cultural phenomena, and describes cultural codes of body language and mediality, for example.
The project applies Schneider's concept, whereby a performance with or without technical media can already be understood as a form of recording, as a "document", so to speak, to questions of "re-performance". At the same time, it proceeds from the understanding that, conversely, performative status can be ascribed to both the performance and its documents and documentations. The project reaps benefits from this conceptual insight in artistic, curating and education activities.
Cultural studies-based and qualitative analyses are used to interrogate and investigate five significant collections/archives in Switzerland and three abroad in terms of their practices, scope and collection criteria. Further data material is garnered from semi-structured interviews with artists, researchers, educators and archivists, which is then analysed to clarify the specific requirements of potential users. This allows the modelling of new parameters for the processing of performance art in time-based archives, which is made available to practice partners: a temporary "model archive" set up in the Ausstellungsraum Klingental exhibition space (practice partner) is used for the documentation of performance art over a one-and-a-half month period by four teams, comprising artists, researchers, teachers and archivists. The results are discussed at an academic conference featuring lectures and live performances from 6–8 October 2011 at the Theater Kaserne venue in Basel (principal practice partner). During the process of the empirical qualitative and practice-based artistic research activities and cultural analyses, standards are drawn up for required document characteristics, with a description of the various materials and strategies that may characterize a performative archive paradigmatically informed by the performative interplay of theory and practice.
As the project proceeds, a manual for both potential users and managers of archives/collections is prepared, drawing to an increased extent on theoretical perspectives to formulate proposals on archiving processes, which in turn may be taken up by other archiving initiatives. This leads to the standardization of archive practices and more effective networking between archives. The involvement and collaboration of archive experts (SIK and MAdeK at ZHdK) ensures effective transfer to data collections and programmes.
The "performative archive" project fills a gap in the research domain between performance and documentation. It makes a fundamental contribution to current debates on time-based art and the extent to which it can be archived, incorporating current theoretical discourse on preservation and documentation methods from related domains, and retaining strong links with practice.