Performance Art Redux: One Year Performance Video

Turbulence.org and artists MTAA’s “One Year Performance Video” is a 21st century update to Sam Hsieh’s seminal 1978-1979 One Year Performance, in which the artist voluntarily sequestered himself in a self-built jail cell for a year, beholden to a set of strict rules: no leaving, reading, writing, entertainment, or conversing with others.

Hosted on Turbulence’s website, “One Year Performance Video” shows the two artists that comprise MTAA meandering about identical bedrooms, with a second counter at the bottom of the video recording how long visitors have been tuned in. Viewers are asked to sign in to keep track of how long they’ve been watching, the goal being to sit through it for a full year. The video is looped and not streaming, but is loaded according to log in time (those that start watching in the morning will see morning time activities; those watching at night will see the artists sleeping). This reintrepretation of Hsieh’s year long performance uses technology to transform the humanity-testing aspect of the original piece, placing the performative challenge on the viewer.

Turbulence explains:

First, we’ve taken the act of living in a cell and transformed it into images of ourselves living in a cell. These video clips are edited dynamically at runtime so that every viewer sees a slightly different cut.

Second, we’ve transferred the onus of a 1 year commitment to the work from the artist to the viewer. The piece will be realized fully only when a viewer runs it for one year. As M.River put it:

“In the work, we mimic endurance without doing the labor. We also know the audience can just close the browser and walk away. No one needs to suffer on this one. The failure is built-in at the front end.”

Will a viewer ever complete the work? It’s doubtful.

Though the work stands fully on its own, another dimension is added when it’s viewed in dialogue with the work that inspired it. The choices made in updating the work we believe speaks to how our society, culture, and the creative process has changed since the original was created.

This work was created as part of MTAA’s Updates series, in which the artists “resound seminal performance art from the 60s and 70s in part by replacing human processes with computer processes”.

[via bookofjoe]