Archives, art, and the performativity of practice

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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