Dorothea Rust: Floating Gaps. Affektive Politiken von Performance-Kunst zwischen Erinnerung und Ereignis

Abstract

Dorothea Rust: Floating Gaps. Affective politics of performance art between recall and happening

Performance art today takes place on an ambiguous site: close to everyday life, yet relying on a range of predecessors, it should be aware of recalling existing bodies and images and of anticipated forms of acting. Not simply reminiscent, performance art may also offer opportunities for actualizing and shifting these images. This essay examines how these processes of iteration could give way to alternative performance histories written by performance. It contextualizes this idea with reference to reflections on an aesthetics of affect that maintains a certain sense of reflection. The example discussed is Floating Gaps (2012) by the Swiss choreographer and artist Dorothea Rust, who approaches performance as a “historiographic tool” and as a means of figurative citation and “practical theory.”