Real Events Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture by Philip Auslander Review by: Jennie Klein PAJ: A Journal of Performance

and Art, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Jan., 2000), pp. 130-133 Published by: Performing Arts Journal, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3245921 . Accessed: 17/03/2012 11:51
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REALEVENTS

Jennie Klein
BOOK REVIEWED: Philip Auslander. Liveness:Performancein a Mediatized Culture.New York: Routledge, 1999. The effort to "cite"the performance that interests us even as it disappearsis much like the effort to find the word to say what we mean. It can't be done, but the futile looking attaches us again to Hope. It's impossible to succeed, but writing's supplement traces the architecture of the ruin's Hope. .... -Peggy Phelan, Reading

or PeggyPhelan,writingabout

performance, an ephemeral art form that disappears even as it is appearing, is an impossible task as the performance cannot be re-instated, but only vaguely remembered. As she argued in her 1993 book Unmarked:The Politics of Performance, performance derives its strength from its unique ontology of non-reproducibility. Performance's ability to elude what Phelan has termed "the politics of visibility" places it outside of the (phallic) Law and therefore outside of the domain of patriarchal and oppressive representation. Performance can never be re-presented; it is thus in the domain of performance that Phelan finds "Hope," the trace or indication of a place from which a revolution might take place. Writing towards disappearance, as Phelan proposes to do, is an inherently optimistic act, one that does not so much "fix"the

performance as re-position it to mean something new and exciting. Phelan's belief in the inherently transgressive nature of performance, a belief that has been echoed in much less theoretical terms by performance artists themselves, has become enormously influential in the six years that have passed since the publication of Unmarked (and of the anthology Acting Out: Feminist Performances,which she prepared with Lynda Hart). This is not particularlysurprising,as Phelan'sclaims for the radical ontology of live performance addressa collective nostalgia (one that is modernist in origin) for a site of resistance or transgression. What better place to situate that site than art/live performance, which has traditionally situated itself outside of the realm of hegemonic representation? Does performance reallystand apart ontologically

130

day,is shapedby and modeledupon the mediatized of representations television. back at the history of televiLooking sion, Auslanderpoints out that television initiallymodeled itself on the ideto ology of "liveness,"able capturethe intimacyand immediacyof live theatre in a way that film could not (originally all televisionbroadcasts werelive). This ideology of "liveness"in connection with television and the televisualhas continuedtodayin spiteof the fact that

most television is no longer live, resulting in the displacement of live performance, which is now used after the fact to validate the "realness" the mediatized of event. Thus television sitcoms such as Happy Days or children's films such as The Lion King are made into stage events after the initial mediatized verThese provocativequestionsare posed sion has been released,while a character in by Philip Auslander his recentbook such as Ronald McDonald, created first Liveness: in Performance a Mediatized for television, then makes "live"appearin Culture, whichhe takeson the mean- ances at various McDonald's around the U.S. It also explains why the "live"rock ing of "liveness"at the end of the twentiethcentury, ultimately and comes concert (which can only be experienced to someverydifferent conclusions about by those not close to the screen through the ontology of performance, even the aid of large video screens showing and the significance "liveness" a society the "live" action down below on the of in whose point of referencehas become stage) authenticates the previously rethe television.Auslander's leased CD, as well as why the live point of deis the common assumption, concert bears a striking resemblance to parture prevalentin both popularculture and a music video. Finally it explains why the performance theory,"that 'live'event the touchstone of performative authenis 'real'and that mediatizedevents are ticity is now the Unpluggedseries proand secondary somehowartificial repro- duced by MTV, itself a mediatized repductionsof the real."In an effortto get resentation of a musical event. "Live wisdom,Aus- performance," Auslander writes, "... beyondthis conventional landerexaminesthe placeand ideology has become the means by which of "live"performance three institu- mediatized representations are naturalin tions: television,the rock concert, and ized, according to a simple logic that copyrightlaw. appeals to our nostalgia for what we assumed was the im-mediate: if the In his first chapter,Auslanderargues mediatized image can be recreated in a that live performance, even that done live setting, it must have been 'real' to artiststoby avant-garde performance begin with." Auslander argues that all live performance, even that associatedwith the avantgarde, cannot claim independence from the language of mass reproduction, particularly since live performance is "already inscribed with traces of the possibility of technical mediation (i.e., mediatization) that defines it as live." Far from standing in opposition to contemporary mediatized culture, live performance defines itself in relationship
KLEIN / RealEvents * 131

and ideologicallyfrom other forms of representation in today's culture of simulacraand media representation? Is it in factabove(or beyond)the Lawand its discursive structures? is it in fact Or the result of those very forms that it supposedlyopposes?

to that culture.In fact,werethatculture to be somehow miraculouslyzapped as out of existence,"live"performance it is presentlydefined would cease to exist. The very desire for live performance comes not from the need for community or immediacy (two commonly cited benefitsof the live over the mediatized),but from the demand for the "real" createdby mediatizationitthat self.Auslander suggests Phelan's thus claim for an uniqueontologyof performance, outlined above, is fallacious,as it is not at all clearthatliveperformance has a separateontology, or is "unable" to enterinto the economyof reproduction. In a rather brilliant theoretical sleight of hand, Auslanderpoints out that Phelan's ontologyof disappearance, which she suggests is an unique attributeof performance, in factequally is to televisionitself."Bothlive applicable performanceand the performanceof mediatizationare predicatedon disapThe televisualimage is propearance: duced by an ongoing processin which scan lines replaceone another,and it is alwaysas absentas it is present;the use of recordingscauses them to degenerate. In a very literal, material sense, televisual other technicalreproducand like live performances, become tions, themselvesthroughdisappearance." In the final chapter, takeson Auslander Phelan'scontention that performance, which can exist only in memory, is somehowoutside of the Law.Phelanis of course referringto the law in the Lacaniansense of a symbolic realm of which servesto regulate social discourse in interactions both public and private. Somewhatmore literally, Auslander exin amines the position of performance to the actuallawsthat govrelationship ern its use in American society.Interest132 * PAJ 64

ingly enough,he findsthat the qualities ascribedby Phelanto live performance have an exact parallelin the law itself. is On the one hand, live performance excludedfrom copyrightprotectionbecause of the belief that as an unfixed mode of culturalproductionit cannot be copied. On the other hand, live performancein the form of witness testimony is given precedencein jury trials, in part because "the essence of testimony is not the information reof called but the performance recalling it in the courtroom,beforethe accused Far and the jury." frombeing outsideof the law, memory,especiallywhen it is is and retrieved, subjectto surveillance "The fact that the groundregulation. in ing of performance an ontology of is livenessand disappearance as fundaof mental to the understanding performancein and of the law as it is to many accountsof performance from emerging the performancetheory problematizes desireto see thatontologyas a sourceof resistanceto reproductionand regula"In concludes. a double tion,"Auslander of recuperation, which is based gesture in the sameunderstanding the ontolof of performance that advocated as ogy theorists[Phelan], by some performance Americanlaw deniesperformance legal standing as intellectual property and recuperatesit as central to the legal processitself." in Liveness: Performance a Mediatized Culture raises some very interesting points, particularlyin regardsto the privilegingof the live over the mediatized. Given the popularityof Phelan's theories, I suspect many people will take issue with this small book, which raisesmore questionsthan it answers. One of its most troublingaspectsis that it forces those of us who write about

avant-gardeperformance-particularly feministandminorityperformance-to re-theorizeits meaning in relationship to other forms of culturalproduction. Can we reallycontinue to argue,given the media spectaclesthat the performances of well- known artists such as Holly Hughes,Karen Finley,and Laurie Anderson have become, that their performativeactions take place in a realmof transgression againstthe patriarchalnorm? Or do we now need to construct in relation the mediatized it to culturein which it wasproduced? an As arthistorian who writesaboutperformance, I regret that Auslanderdid not includea chapter the meaningof live on art performance/performance in relationship to the art world. Since performance art "originated" the late in sixtiesandearly seventies some (although would traceits roots even furtherback to the beginningof the twentiethcen-

tury), could we argue (as I suspect Auslanderwould) that the very development of this art form was premised upon its position within a mediatized culture that continues to valorize an ever more elusive liveness?Could this particularargument change how we theorizethis sort of work?Perhaps,in order to retain the Hope (hope for resistance, hope for transgression, hope for a breakwith the norm) aboutwhich Phelanwrites, it might be necessary to jettisoncompletelythe notion that performanceis ontologicallyunique in its stanceagainst mediatization oppositional and instead begin to explorethe mannerin which certainparticular performances"workthe weaknessin the norm" (to paraphrase JudithButler)and begin to re-iterate the representations produced by a culturealreadysaturated by a mediatized notion of what constitutes
"liveness."

JENNIE KLEIN teaches art history at Berea College in Kentucky.

PAJ,NO. 64 (2000) PP. 130-133: ? 2000

The Johns Hopkins University Press
KLEIN / RealEvents * 133