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Archives, art, and the performativity of practice

Archives, art, and the performativity of practice
Archives, art, and the performativity of practice
This chapter considers how performative (rules driven) methodologies and modalities are common to both archival and artistic practices, and it deliberates the relationship between work and art that follows from this. Although techniques of recordkeeping and documentation are routine inside the archive, they may appear radical when brought into art practice. This radicalisation follows the Duchampian model of the ‘readymade’: the shift from a familiar to an unfamiliar context. Although the debate here lies outside conventional archive theory and art criticism, it is pertinent to both archives and art. Additionally, whilst archival thinking has informed the art practices discussed here (both text- and image-based), it is hoped that consideration of such practices may be thought provoking and constructive when taken back into the archive. The themes of performativity, labour, media archaeology, material culture and cultural theory addressed here are as critical to archival thinking as they are to art.
art, description, documentation, labour, media archaeology, performativity, photography, temporality
151-266
Oxford University Press
Birkin, Jane
30ada6e1-9603-4a9c-9159-8297758817fe
Prescott, Andrew
Wiggins, Alison
Birkin, Jane
30ada6e1-9603-4a9c-9159-8297758817fe
Prescott, Andrew
Wiggins, Alison

Birkin, Jane (2023) Archives, art, and the performativity of practice. In, Prescott, Andrew and Wiggins, Alison (eds.) Archives: Power, True and Fiction. (Oxford Twenty-First Century Approaches to Literature) Oxford. Oxford University Press, pp. 151-266.

Record type: Book Section

Abstract

This chapter considers how performative (rules driven) methodologies and modalities are common to both archival and artistic practices, and it deliberates the relationship between work and art that follows from this. Although techniques of recordkeeping and documentation are routine inside the archive, they may appear radical when brought into art practice. This radicalisation follows the Duchampian model of the ‘readymade’: the shift from a familiar to an unfamiliar context. Although the debate here lies outside conventional archive theory and art criticism, it is pertinent to both archives and art. Additionally, whilst archival thinking has informed the art practices discussed here (both text- and image-based), it is hoped that consideration of such practices may be thought provoking and constructive when taken back into the archive. The themes of performativity, labour, media archaeology, material culture and cultural theory addressed here are as critical to archival thinking as they are to art.

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More information

Published date: 14 December 2023
Keywords: art, description, documentation, labour, media archaeology, performativity, photography, temporality

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 485703
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/485703
PURE UUID: e3f2a228-7cbc-43ef-9f81-623a2da0c8fb
ORCID for Jane Birkin: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-6025-9300

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 15 Dec 2023 17:32
Last modified: 13 Sep 2024 01:36

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Contributors

Author: Jane Birkin ORCID iD
Editor: Andrew Prescott
Editor: Alison Wiggins

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