Performing the Archive: The Transformation of the Archive in Contemporary Art from Repository of Documents to Art Medium

'Instead of smoothing over contemporary art's violent and iconoclastic dimensions, instead of sanitizing and making complex artworks docile in terms of archival possibilities, this book suggests we abandon our fantasy of mastery over representation and respond in kind to the archive-as-artwork, to "living" archives, and to reenactments of history with their seamless connections between fiction and non-fiction. Among the concepts examined are Vilém Flusser's techno-imagination, Lygia Clark's and Hélio Oiticica's participatory aesthetics, and Paulo Bruscky's and Eduardo Kac's literal performances of the archive. They contribute to the erosion of the archive's former boundaries, stability, function, and meaning. Writing alongside the artists as much as about them, Osthoff examines the archive mise-en-abyme, as it grows increasingly recombinant and generative.' - from back cover.

Includes a bibliography.

Access level

Onsite

author

Simone OSTHOFF

publisher

Atropos Press (New York, United States)

Location code

REF.OSS3

Language

English

Keyword

aesthetics, archive, art theory, performance art, participatory art

Publication/Creation date

2009

No of pages

203

ISBN / ISSN

9780982530900

No of copies

Content type

monograph

Chapter headings

Introduction

Part I: The Archive as Artwork: Ontological Change and Methodological Challenges

Elsewhere in Contemporary Art: Topologies of Artists' Works, Writings, and Archives

When Documentation and Memory Refuse to Settle, is the Archive Alive?

Vilém Flusser's Archive: A Topology of Translations without Foundation

Part II: Relational Aesthetics and the Archive: Sensorial Experiences beyond Vision Transforming Audiences into Participants

Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica: Legacies and Archives of Participatory Art

Part III: Performing the Archive: Displacing Documentation and Implanting Memory, the Works of Paulo Bruscky and Eduardo Kac

Paulo Bruscky: From Mail Art to the Archive as Installation Art

Eduardo Kac: Networking, Implanting, and Remixing the Archive

Conclusion

Performing the Archive: The Transformation of the Archive in Contemporary Art from Repository of Doc

Citation

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