Through this research I aim to analyze the construction of liveness* in semiprivate and public spheres online, put online liveness in friction with physical offline environments and research the performative potential for participatory art to be constructed inside the liminal space between on- and offline.
The project will research how performative text and video instructions can intervene online everyday practices through appearing in wrong or unexpected contexts. In friction with commodified experiences and experience industry, the research focuses on creating conditions for online audiences to surprise themselves inside self-perceptive playful encounters.
Choreographic contingencies for on and offline cross-breeds internet art, expanded choreography and relational art. The research on performative messages is deriving from my artistic practice of Treasure Hunting in live and networked environments and can be traced historically to the conceptual instructions of the Fluxus movement, e.g. Yoko Ono’s instruction pieces. The artistic research will further be contextualized through knowledge production reflecting media and communication studies as well as philosophical practices, especially the branches of phenomenology, post-structuralism and deconstruction.
Coming from a performing-art background I’m especially intrigued to explore how online environments can be approached as “performing in public space”. By making use of choreographic tools, role play mechanisms and literary techniques for online site-specific situations, I aim to research how to create encounters that are available to spontaneous audiences.
* In dictionaries two definitions of the word liveness are given. The quality of being alive or being live. I refer to the second. I also embrace the additional meaning which liveness has inside media theory. Inside media theory, liveness is also used to describe the quality of something appearing to be live although it’s not. In my research liveness is addressed as situations being constructed in the moment. The encoding and decoding of information happening simultaneously.