This is what you missed…

“If theatre’s privileged document has largely been the precedent texted play, Live Art’s legacy for the archive has generally been the documentary photographs and narrative accounts that appear to follow in the wake of an act. Still, in most instances of Live Art, the photograph is a supplement, a stand-in for the event itself, or an instance of its traces or detritus. In such cases the photograph is usually given to say: This is what you missed, and thus the image stands as a strange proof that you, viewer, were not there (even if you were). That is, the documentary photograph intones: You will have missed this (even if you were in attendance).”

Rebecca Schneider, ‘The Document Performance’ in The Live Art Almanac, edited by Daniel Brine and Emmy Minton (London: Live Art Development Agency and the University of Leeds, 2008) page 118-119.

Image: The aftermath of an installation by Yana Taylor in the creative development stage of version 1.0's Hurt and Damage, May 2008. Photo by Heidrun Lohr.