Performing the Archive: The Transformation of the Archive in Contemporary Art from Repository of Documents to Art Medium

Instead of smoothing over contemporary art's violent and iconoclastic dimensions, instead of sanitizing and making complex artworks docile in terms of archival possibilities, this book suggests we abandon our fantasy of mastery over representation and respond in kind to the archive-as-artwork, to "living" archives, and to reenactments of history with their seamless connections between fiction and non-fiction. Among the concepts examined are Vil m Flusser's techno-imagination, Lygia Clark's and H lio Oiticica's participatory aesthetics, and Paulo Bruscky's and Eduardo Kac's literal performances of the archive. They contribute to the erosion of the archive's former boundaries, stability, function, and meaning. Writing alongside the artists as much as about them, Osthoff examines the archive mise-en-abyme, as it grows increasingly recombinant and generative. Simone Osthoff received her Ph.D. from the European Graduate School and is Associate Professor of Critical Studies in the School of Visual Arts at Pennsylvania State University. An art critic and historian of contemporary art, her numerous essays, focusing on media art practices and issues of historiography, have been published internationally and translated into over eight languages.

Author: Simone Osthoff
Publisher: Atropos Press
Published: 09/23/2009
Pages: 208
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.59lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.48d
ISBN13: 9780982530900
ISBN10: 0982530900
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Media Studies
- Philosophy | Aesthetics
- Art | General

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