Nicht unmittelbar, sondern bedingt. Zum performativen Verhältnis von Subjekt und Bild am Beispiel einer Videoprojektion

Abstract

Sigrid Adorf:

“Not directly, but conditionally”: On the Performative Relationship between Subject and Image (Using the Example of a Video Projection)

This contribution challenges the widespread belief that an effective, that is to say, performative encounter with art necessarily presupposes immediacy. It then deconstructs the assumption that such immediacy is contingent upon the “bodily co-presence” of actors and spectators. Using the example of video performance as a hybrid situated between an aesthetics of the moment and its recording, the paper questions the apodictic boundary drawn between presence and representation. Contemporary video projections, according to the claim posited here following the work of Mieke Bal, create an experiential space for spectators that embodies in hypothetical form as it were the interplay between image, language, affect, subjectivity, and memory. Direct address and confrontation turn the image palpably into a challenging counterpart, one who demands its opposite “to respond” and to take position. The paper discusses a concrete example, Elodie Pong’s “Je suis une bombe” (2006), to explore whether and how a relationship can be deduced from such encounters that might be described as having the power to effect change, not least in a political sense.