UnmarkedThe Politics of Performance Peggy Phelan Eì London and New York rècorded." de- and galleries. but this repetition itself marks it as "different.7 The ontology of performance: representation without reproduction lhe ontology of performance 147 when Calle places these commentaries within the representation of the culture is the "now" to which performance addresses its deepest questions valued. has photographed the galleries of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. or otherwise participatlq_the circulation-of representations o/ representations: once it does so. The descriptions . ilection which circulates despite its "permanence. especially painting and photography. She then arranged the to the exact dimensions of the circulating For her contribution to the Dislocntions show at the Museum of in 7997.. it becomes something other than performance.ent." The document of a performance then is only a spur to memory.l dispersed Calle's piece Ghosts. and restorers to describe paintings that were on loan from the permanent collection.e-ind us how loss nd for the f lhe qbject dislRpearModern Art in New York she asked curators.s own eye is it the is She then transcribed these texts and placed them next to the photographs of the galleries. ate drawn increasingly toward performance. asking them to describe the stolen paintings." . Her work suggests that the descriptions and memories of the paintings constitute their continuing "presence. The French-born artist Sophie Calle. Performance cannot be saved. an encouragement of memory to become present. Performance's being. documented.t." Calle's artistic contribution is a kind of self-concealment in which she offers the words of others about other wo followingmuseum.) Performance occurs over a time which will not be repeated. To the degree that performance attempts to enter the economy of reproduction it betrays and lessens the pro_mise of its own ontology. (This is why the now is supplemented and buttressed by the documenting camera. for example. she also asked them to draw ies of the paintings. of the reproductive economy are enormous. Several valuable paintings were stolen from the museum in 1990. becomes itself through disappearance. and as the visitor discovers le. it rather helps us to restage and restate the effort to remember what is lost. the video archive. For only rarely in Performance's only life is in the p1es. controlling all conflicting and unprofes- sional commentary about it. Calle used the same idea but this time on the wall where the actual paintings y through because The other arts. The speech act of memory and description (Austin's constative utterance) becomes a performative expression \' . The pressures brought to bear on performance to succumb to the laws this not reproduce the object. like the ontology of subjectivity proposed here. the institutional effect of the gallery often seems to put the masterpiece under house arrest. guards. Calle interviewed various visitors and members of the museum staff. It can be performed again. rather than the act of writi toward preservation. Tlyl"lgly a-ïmitèd-ñum!er To attempt to write about the undocumentable event of performance is to invoke the rules of the written document and thereby alter the event itself. the reproductio by someone else necessarily tuãnsforms reproduction is a new h act shares with the i o be re!róduced or repeated. the gazing spectator must try to take everything in. however. To for a love whose goal is to share the Impossible is both a ticles..| ac.' | _. Writing about naugurated within this perfor_ ence from mass reproduction.: __ . Perhaps nowhere was the affinity between the ideology of capitalism and art made more manifest only in that which is no longer there.s (always partial) pres_ absence. "erformative tp"". "I bet.. For Derrida.-''''' . For to acknowledge the Other. so too must performance critics rcalize that the labor to write document/ary. The distinction between performative and constative utterances was J. world) a¡d a performative element (to say something i" to do o. It must full seeing of the other's absence (the ãmbitTous part).'! . live performance plunges into visibility . This is the project of Roland Barthes in both Camera Lucida and Barthes by Roland Bqrthes.in a maniacally charged present .ièpro4.^a !l't -------in¡29!ve a !' . be repeated. Performanc economy tun resists the e about performance (and thus to "preserve" it) is also a labor fundamentally alters the event.r.' ' Tlie ontology of performance 14g I Performance in a strict ontological sense is .: (-=r. for it seeks to find connection í-' t\ than in the debates about the funding policies for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).''.2 Targeting both photography and perfgrnlnce art. must remember that the after-effect of di ance is the experience of subjectivity itself.and disappears into memory.". cari"!1Q_qc¡ _the frame of Pegry:e but_cannot mimic an art thalls . tically.ror.ry of speech and writing..iris this quality which makes performance the runt of th-httei-of contemporary art.g.It is also his project in Empire of Signs. The trace left by that script is the point of a mutual disappearance. Austin in How To Do Things with words.i . is its greatest strength. It does no good.1J- . somethilg.Z Tania Modleski has rehearsed Derriãa's rehùon to Austin and argues the. fust as quantum physics discovered that macro-instruments cannot measure microscopic particles without transforming those par...ts refer olly to themselves. conservative politicians sought to prevent endorsing the "qe!? bodies implicated and made visible by these art forms. In pèrformattce ari spectatorship there is an ãlement of coãÈuñpdÌon: there are no left-overs. it g about performance often. rather than. as the motivation for the search for a di pearing performative writing.but this book he takes the memory of a city in which he no longer is. shared subjectivity is possible Barthes because two people can recognize the same Impossible.I beg. Love. Without a copy. e. -' ft. established. -_ pèiformative utterance cannot-r' .s Austin that speech had both a constative element (describing things in Tg"e¿ proposed by make- . Performance resists the balanced circulations of finance. "I promise. the strange process by which we put words in each other's mouths and others relies on a substitutional economy d and re_ th¡ee letters cøt wlTl repeatedly signi4z is qualified.rctive. behind the drive of the is to discover a way idea that for as nces.* ' '-Ì :. an activity whicí. into the realm of invisibility and the unconscious where it eludes regulation and control. s of capital and reproduction..i "t' I ¡ . Performance implicatelthe teal through the presence of living bortigs.'t ) .. they enact the aãtivity the speech t@"r. It saves nothing. constativ çf pgople in a specific time/space frame càn have an trace afterward. project and an exceedingly ambitious one. Performance's repeated words to become Benveniste warned. Each writing. The challenge raised by the ontological claims of performance writing is to re-mark again the performative possibilities of writing i The act of writing toward disappearance.ííÇo" rrye. The *"l. performative wriã utterance of the promise: I pro tive is important to Derriãa independence from the refere performative enacts the now of writing in the pïesent time. a from which he disappears. sight. relies on the reproduction of the Same (thethr foirJegged furry animal with whiskers) for the production of rneaning. to refuse to write about performance because of this inescapable ation.148 Unmarked Ill"l. . Performance clogs the smooth machinery of reproductive representation necessary to the circulation of capital. . Memory...'. Otherwise..). 1. a seeing which also entails the acknowledgment of the other's !resence (thã humbling part). 'the mother. õf "presence. In order to enact this marking.s Modleski goes further too and says that *ornãn't rãlation to the performative mode of writing and speech is especially intense because women are not assured the luxury of making linguistic promises within phallogocentrism. Feminist critical writing." As we discovered in relation to Cindy Sherman's self-portraits. same sex bathrooms are social institutions which further the metaphorical work of hiding gender/genital difference. it works by erasing dissimilarity and negating difference. and wounds. these unfied bodies are different in "one" aspect of the body. Iç_ bllndnes" necessary to the anti-Oedipus? To Electra? Does metonymy need blindness as keenly as metaphor does? relation between subjectiv se. As MacCannell points out about Lacan's story of the "laws of urinary . how do women reproduce and represent themselves within the figures and metaphors of hommosexual representation and culture? Are they perhaps surviving in another (auto)reproductive system? "\Arhat founds our gender economy (division of the sexes and their mutual evaluation) is the exclusion of the mother. The discursive and iconic "nothingness" of the Mother's genitals is what culture and metaphor cannot face. For performance art itself however. the performer actually disappears and represents something else . or maybe even more strongly. This is the blindness of Oedipus. to invoke the title of Elaine Scarry's book. Commenting on Shoshana Felman's account of the "scandal of the speaking body. the referent is always the agonizingly relevant body of the performer. Figuring Lacøn:106). "[T]he real. it accomplishes this by turning two (or more) into one.but they don't. If Modleski is accurate in suggesting that the opposition for feminists who write is between the "speaking bodies" of men and the "mute bodies" of women. They must be effaced in order to allow the phallus to operate as that which always marks. "the body in pain. the very effort to make the female body appear involves the addition of something other than "the body. for performance the opposition is between "the body in pleasure" and. a metaphor which upholds the vertical hierarchy of value through systematic maìking of the positive and the negative. Averting the eyes from the "nothing" of the mother's genitals is the blindness which fuels castration.that which cannot appear with In employing the body meton). difference is located in the genitals. must not be seen" (original emphasis._T_ Ct tq.language and speech . as a "cultural worker. Modleski argues that the scandal has different affects and effects for women than for men. but rather the kettle is boiling because the water inside the kettle is. not with the 'speaking body. and. movement.the metaphor I'm most keenly interested ín resisting is the _metaphor of gender. The point is not that the kettle is like waler (as in the metaphorical love is like a rose). of voice. how do they survive? If it is a question of survivat. f. "works toward a time when the traditionally mute body." so too does the sign fail to reproduce the referent. lust as her body remains unseen as "in itself it really is. more specifically her body. These cannot. sound. the metaphor of gender presupposes unified bodies which are biologically dìfferent. Metaphor works to secure a vertical hierarchy of value and is reproductive." But in-the plenitude of its a-!!aIiñt visfuillty and availability. Cast¡ation is a response to this blindness to the mother's genitals. of character. The genitals themselves are forever hidden within metaphor.dance. MacCannell. performance uses the body to frame the lack of B d through the body .' but with the 'mute body' " (ibid. more precisely yet. The joined task of metaphor and culture is to reproduce itself." That "addition" becomes the object of the spectator's gaze. historical scandal to which feminism addresses itself is surely not to be equated with the writer at the center of discourse. Modleski argues.' will be given the same access to 'the names' .rnically. her genitnls.ernlnullttliÇel1yqti4g is an enactment of belief in a better futrrre." continually converts difference into the Same. In performance. "art.: 15). since all too often she is what is promised. values.that men have enjoyed" (ibid.150 Unmarked The ontology of performance 151 that "feminist critical wriling is simultaneously performaüvq _and utopian" ( "Some Functions" : ts). charâcter. In "The Uncanny" Freud suggests that the fear of blindness is a displacement of the deeper fear of castration but surely it works the other way as well. Metonymy is additive and associative. Perfolmance uses the performer's body to pose-a question about the ina6ility to secure the segregation" (Ecrits: 151). one moves from the realm of metaphor to the realm of metonymy. performance is capable of resisting the reproduction of metaphor. it turns two into one. why would white w-Omen (ãpparently visible cultural workers) participate in the reproduction of their own negation? What aspects of the bodies and languages of women remain outside metaphor and inside the historical real? Or to put it somewhat differently. but the woman who remains outside of it. More specfically." a scandal Felman elucidates through a reading of Molière's Dom luan. "The kettle is boiling" is a sentence which assumes that water is contiguous with the kettle. If this is t¡ue then women should simply disappear . that is to say.: 19). Or do they? If women are not reproduced within metaphor or culture.e By valuing one gender and marking it (with the phallus) culture reproduces one sex and one gender." In moving from the grammar of words to the grammar of the body. in much the way the supplement functions to secure and displace the fixed meaning of the (floating) signifier.. and metaphor. the body is metonymic of self. it works to secure a horizontal axis of contiguity and displacement. lhe act of_rllriting brings that future closer. the hommo-sexual. etc.the moving in Bgt ftq!-n-lhe aims of reduction of the t*" . Her aPpearance is always .the desie to be valued' by the valued oi becoming PromPts the he pl"usrrr" Culturalordersrelyontherenunciationofconsciousdesireand refers and promise á SA to th veil of dignitY.. that it cannot be achieved' II she appears in order Angelika Festa creates performance pieces in which extraordinary: she to disappear (Figure Z+¡.ulÇ.-u". metaplorical Performance approaches the Real through resisting. WhY 9"lY itseif? Because the fundamental Ot scene" which ghosts the conscious s the Ideal Other for whom the sub nal economY which is cannot appear predicated ]i performs for a rather than satisfaction. This death t be reprod'uced or seen (again)' It faiturË." spectãcle is itself a projection of the scenario in own desire takes Place.) which some desire to be seen by (and within) t w hich her p"tio.o"'ise of castration" and (For Lacan' value is Other' "vaiue" itself . displacemetonymy' of tnose io duction. secrets.tt"ffi^::. 'hardghiLqrt" or More specifi. actors within characters crimes.t" the one.iiff'l h by rehearsing for it' (It is for this fundamental bònd with ritual' The bodY a n. u genre of perf< rlnalce art called presence and "ordeal art" attemPtr"to i"t'oke a distinction between subject a on ii. and pleasure Performance marks value that which is I through the stagin (twins.152 Unmarked The ontology of performance 153 reward for this renunciation' MacCannell locates it in the idea of to this as "the positive f. J) 0) LL G * c) c o) U) . You Are Obsessive. (J E o o c) i I ! I -o Ë o ö o E o@ f..(ú . Eat Somethlng (1984). .. (Photo: Claudine Ascher..OJ a (¡) È È a) (ô o $ o I o c $ È Q) u) d LL o * õ C\ (ú o c to 0) O) tJ_- Figure 24 Angelika Festa. Courtesy: Angelika Festa) . one has to turn one's back seem to be consumable while the c image. in order r the video monitor recording the performance itself.a "Ï ." left. suggests that it is onlY presentation that we "see" anvthin eves) is averted from the spectator rhus to seizebody for the The failure to see the eve/I locates Festa's suspende-d v to meet the eYe defines the other's :.* ä * of. and the time-elapsed the on also in front of her f JT:il mini- o I ñ .- -c o ö rt tr t* o " a) tire fish tape spectator conmon1tor dlrectlv in front of her and raised.156 Unmarked Iike: the fecundity of the central image ts (the mummy) and Future-as-Unborn (the ì performanãe defines the Present (Festa's bodv) as that which continuallv-susp The ir-e return of that death and the app onlv Present is that which can tolerate ne required for the exist because of these two "originary" acts' Both are between animation suspended the Present to be present. forces the at ru Festa's suspended bodv' in order to look at look to has to look "beyond" Festa.- Ë o f he first two' The Projected images ironic.:::l t "ïüä i"ä :î'.t È AJ o a r! ì I = (g (n a) tL 0) :o c (o CÚ \J o u- O) . half-devout allusion to the of the he proj and on their si I ': i. for it to exist in the Past and the Future' the But this truism is undercut by another part of the performance: trus- (õ u) LL : õ c (õ O) oment the fish breaks out of the T I g) È f c) s Itiply" ) O tr c o T o of the cYcle of that mutation which iÁ wittily made literal by the n rtff . Vhäreas for Mapple thorpe's holding the g"rirrr" toward self-imaginglÀis is a response to the äme-release shutter). \. While the gazè fosters what Lacan cal "..denyil ihis position to the spectat-or Festa and Simpson also stop the usu claims of ine critic. tJne gaze is possible both because the änunciations of ãrticulate . Simpson suggests' need to see and to read other/wise. discussed in Richard Leland model male Mapplethorpe's of 's clenched fist is a chapter^2.yes and because the subject finds position to see within the optics ánd grammar of language' In. irisiäpsott's ' sexual and racial attacks indäxed as the very ground upon which her image rests. ever fixed. Sight is both an image and a word.and the narrative of rnastery integral to it . in Simpson's work.requires a bitingual approach to worá and image.iuti. domestic work. the "belong to me aspect" of the."".158 Unmarked t? lô t\ a- response inment within the discurto turn her back' In the fists and rePeats the Pose (1980). a turned to a PercePtion t3 lo) lz lo lõ lo tld) l(d l¡ t.r1Th" báck registers the effacement of the subject withjn " hæf tic and visual field which requires her to be either the Same or the containable. lco ls lã lã t? lo) lo) ttv lør lc lo È o " q) E G o (l i a E õ i ¡\ C\t (ú c a I t{" .rrr. As in the work of Festa.8-1) and leaãs the looker to desire mastery of the image' pain inscribed in Festa's performance makes the viewer feel master. document¿ tradition . J9 whaj can and ca11ot $ . the effort to read the image of the repåsented woman's body in Simpson's photography.To attack that..is far too close the "belong to me aspect" of slavery. Other. and the history bar sexual labo-r to be greèted with anyihing other than a fist.r" "the belong to me aspect so reminiscent of ProPerty" (F-our Fu Concepts. and marÇrs force-fe hysteria. Inanner in a n.t.öilïä.räJ':ff .._ In this sense. ]1":" . :T:19:: . These images re_enact perception which defines The Fall more 161 and an awareness of her own "guarded condition" within visual È importance o thu most compelling consequence detailed in this narrative of lt..t whose public hanging/burning is dramatized as "tta moral certitude . whereas in the film Trisha becomes a kind of 'spectator.1.."1""ff :::-"":*'.are each defined in terms of they are not .i: .ï_tlchriÈrs¡kk*f present in the endurance she demands of both her spéctato.rle ro rhe c-o. But while Festa successfuny eliminates the ethical complicity between and doing associated with most theatre.neutral peiformance-. one former. here the spectator becomes a kind of performance issues. of prime real this clause - em weïe opened.ishe becomes a kind of s¡guJicialpuieét ìomõlètelv vulneral.::t:i.. The anorexic who is obsessed by the image of a slender self. and historically md ::'g¿ìfl_1.h". she does not create an i:ttTg ethically. Simpson's work. But after a while "".. i . a similar splitting occurs.1e qq!-ne!ry4s-ermqst obscenely -år¡ogant i..ffi . Images as absurdlY comic as the waiting for DudleY Doright to beat ãs the traditional burning of harrowing as her.á..lr. images of es. and and save the clock images of women tied more cò--ot with coexist witches. questions the traditional com_ yes are completely averted and es that "seeing her. Nell is the epitome of cross-cutting neck-wrenching cartoon drama.". radically subjective.. The riddle is as r about figuring out how they became separated as about how Festa them back together. here the absence of that customary only her own desire to be seen.""ì-i#"t. ongrn. actually incites the spectator toward making of this type.ìi awful._q¿"ctacre.* ã"ä. no overt action).:::::. acle is thwarted perpetually be_ of this piece (complete silence.gt¡pr"y-rirïåã-resil". be to continue we by which and dominated painfulty enthralled.. Untitled is an elaborate pun olled and confined bodY. martyr -it. there is a peculiar the sense oi seeing s ÍilmThe Møn Who rotagonÌst cannot be seen.*T_:. or legitimately powerful. siile-õl-th-saméiontinuum as R er's. (Genesis g. il Ë.160 Unmarked fhe ontology of peformance emphasizes the importance of the nainte perceptual power.healthy.. o*a^r^^r^ or_ _ p_úuli.. heroic.7) _ ade endlessly new is one of the In Festa's work. That these are themselves slippery..r. "sick.." "curing of name in the beds hospital to white have women which by malaise medical whatever oi anorefcs. The austere minimalism e. The lists become dizzyingly similar until one finds almostlmpossiútè to distinguish between Nell screaming on the railroa tracks and the hysteric screaming in the hospital.L.either on the part of the victim-martyr or lesson in the part of the witch's executioner . tl performer.. guilty. Fes_ta's body is disprayed in a completely private (m pnvare (in the sense ofof enclosed) -rr. and by the (potential) domination of the silent spectator.through an intense process of physical and mental labor . psychic. Mv hesitation about this aspect of Festa's work stems not from the latent romance of death (that's common enough). and visual cost of this exchange. In the spectacle of fatigue. endurance. but in the one who listens and says nothing. more often than not. and semi-madness that this u'ork evokes.and implicitly. Festa addresses the female spectator. Festa's performances leave both the spectator and the performer so exhausted that one cannot help but wonder if the pleasure of presence and plenitude is worth having if this is the only wav to achieve it. As a description of the power relationships operative in many forms silent spectator dominates and controls the exchange. beginning with the post-lapsarian second-order of Representation. By taking the notion that women are not visible within the dominant narratives of history and the contemporary customs of performance literally. I begin to realíze that this too is superficial. the performer is always in the female position in relation to power. Mùch Western theatre evokes desire based upon and stimulated by the inequality between performer and spectator .because the performance also insists on the possibility of resurrection. discipline. Where e. That this Presence is registered through the body of a woman in pain is the one concession Festa makes to the pervasiveness (and the persuasiveness) of postlapsarìan perception and Being. By making death multiple and repetitious. which she freely acknowledges and makes blatantly obvious. (As Dustin Hoffman made so clear in Tootsie. but rather from her apparent belief (or perhaps "faith" is a better word) that this suspension/surrender of her own ego can be accomplished in a performance. He is describing the powerknowledge fulcrum which sustains the Roman Catholic confessional. It is this belief/faith which makes Festa's work so extravagantlv literal. it is an uncompromising one. If Festa's work can be seen as a hypothesis about the possibility of human communication." Festa counters: "we can never die sufficiently enough. Festa's Untitled attempts to give birth . Festa asks the spectator to undergo first a paralle[. By virtue of having spectators she accepts at least the initial dualism necessary to all exchange. are "scripted" to "sell" or'-confess" something to someone who is in the position to buy or forgive.15 But more centrally this account of desire between speaker/ performer and listener/spectator reveals how dependent these positions are upon visibility and a coherent point of view. not in the one a representational economy at all. "cancels" my cannibalism. but in the one who questions and is not supposed to know" (SenLøIity: 64). but as with most of Foucault's work. Festa prompts new considerations about the central "absence" integral to the representation of women in patriarchy. Festa also makes it less absolute . however (although at times it comes close to that) . the Future is figured as an unrelenting cycle of death. Festa's piece is contingent upon the possibility of creating a narrative which reverses the narrative direction of The Fall. less sacred . but rather about the loss and grief attendant upon the recognition of the chasm between presence and re-presentation. identification. in some senses. III In The History of Sexualitll Foucault argues that "the agency of domination does not reside in the one who speaks (for it is he who is who knows and answers. In the spectacle of endurance. The question raised by Festa's work is the extent to which interest in visual or psychic aversion signals an interest in refusing to participate in of performance Foucault's observation suggests the degree to which the constrained). e. The perfqrnan#e-r#sides somcl^ihele else somewhere in the reckoning itself and not at all in the sums and differences of our difficult relationship to it. and the recognition of the plenitude of one's physical freedom in contrast to the confi¡ement and pain of the performer's displayed body. although I believe that is part of what is intended.performaacg'l-ilq -q mor¡ement of accretion. A visible and easily located poiñ't of view provides the spectator with a stable point upon which to turn on the machinery of projection. Part of the function of women's ù . I feel instead the terribly oppressive physical. There is no meeting-place here in which one can escape the imposing shadow of those (bloody) feet: if History is figured in the tape loop as a repetitious birth cycle. P-erformers and their critics must begin to redesign this stable set of assumptions about the positions of the theatrical exchange. While all this addition and subtraction is going on in my accountant-eyes. and (inevitable) objectification.rnovement and then an opposite one.to a direct and unmediated Presentation-of-Presence. an inversion of the characteristic paradigms of performative exchange occurs. and depletion.) Women and performers. \ This arrogance. That this model of desire is apparently so compatible with (tuaditional accounts of) "rnale" desire is no accident. Enormously and stunninglv ambitious. excess. But thß th-ougñt-does ñot allow me to completely or easily inhábìt a land of equality or democracy.162 Unmarked The ontology of performance 163 1." This sense of the ubiquitousness of death and dving is not completely oppressive. But Festa's performances are so profoundly "solo" pieces that this work is obviouslv not "a solution" to the problem of women's representation. it resonates in other areas as well.not so much the exclusive province of the gods. cummings w-rites: "we can never be born enough. The spectator'J second 1. her work does not speak about men. rmance.. subject and object." if never "eewal. are tow indeed. in other words. Redesigning the relationship between self and other. but rather by making work in which the costs of s nor make a claim to truth. is comic rather than tragic Within the retatively deteririned limits . into the frames of the stolen or lent ... and t intimately self/other.ariïlill.. The potential mitigation of this pain is also dependent upon language. For Lacan. in which addition and subtraction (the plus and the minus) accord value to the "right" words at the right time. As such. y history ne because their affects/effects.as if. is a ledger of substitutions. sound and image. in the promise of what Stevens calls "the completely answering voice" ("The Sail of Ulysses. "feelings are always reciprocal.in the words of the other. Or are they? . Institutions whose only function.irr-rg.3 redesign the order of the museum and the representational field. the inauguration of language is simultaneous with the inauguration of desire.. because the other's words substitute for other words in an endles s mise-en-abyme of metaphorical exchange. (always somewhat subver_ lways somewhere self_subversive)..radical ing stuck in what sue_Ellen Cas what cannot be seen. a desire which is always painful because it cannot be satisfied. one must seek a cure from the wound of words lr other words . I am not advocating that kind of retreat or hoping for that kind of silence (since that is the position assigned to women in language with such ease). archives. the leap of faith.. This ing. Such forms ol accounting might begin to interfere with the structure of hommo-sexual desire which informs most forms of representation. women's perpetual aversion aré clearly measured." in The Pnlm at the End:389). More difficult still is withdrawing from representation aitogether."t6 Exchanging what one does not institutiona ingly inade ¡unt for that which cannot the promise of security' Museums whose co'ections include objects .:î: question can be re-posed by returning to Austin's contention that a performative utterance cannot be reproduced or represented. The belief. IV Behind the fact of hommo-sexual desire and representation the question of the link between representation and reproduction remains.. In substituting the subject's memory of the object forthe object itr"u..h" performance of theory. One is always offering what one does not have because what one wants is what one does not have . Since the female body and the female character cannot be "staged" or "seen" within representational mediums without challenging the hegemony of male desire." like the act of moving descriptionJ or pui. psychically).. between serf and other. is that this denial will bring about a new form of representation itself (I'm thinking only half jokingly of the sex strike in Lysistratø: no sex till the war ends). into the indicative "is.f th". The savings and loan institutions in the us have lost the customer. Festa's performance work underlines the suspension of the female body between the polarities of presence and absence.t.and for Lacan.these tight "equations" but which nonetheless inform them.'Å.. like paintings which Sophie Calle turn the performative utterances of ut stolen aming them ely unstatic rqcticTt or t'ecutrd thoughts. I think r atedlv cautioned about becom- woman" can exist only between these categories of analysis.ïî.". Thus the linguistic economy. like the financial economy. These institutions must invent an economy not based on preservation but one which is answerable to the consequences of disappearance. as against relief itself..lîi"ï:TlÏfi:ïff.ïï.as unsatisfied quest. it can be effective politically and aesthetically to deny representing the female body (imagistically. spectator and performer. the act of moving the . But this mitigation of pain is always deferred by the promise of relief (Austin's performative).ö. appear between. play within performance and within :ft!ri^#. banks. èril".s berief in . is enormously difficult.not by refusing to participate in it at all. . is to make courlterfeit the currency of our representational economy .. man and woman. and insists that "the absence is does not have) puts us in the of what Felman calls .is to preserve ånd honor ou. T.! 164 Unmarked The ontology of performance 165 to perpetuate and maintain the presence of male desire as desire . The task.""kJ.ur-r.r^r"i is to replot the reration between !9-rcgiver and object.ìllditionar museums. fixed with the "slower" Ileye. Always insecure.166 Unmarked takerVpurchased/obtained from cultures who are now asking (and expecting) their return must confront the legacy of their appropriative history in a much more nuanced and complex way than currently prevails. Fort. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to experiment with the possibility of a different notion of the relation between these two camps. and evaluated by recourse to representation's insurance policies. The measurement of the quantum's movement in time/ space cannot be securely repeated within the logic of empirical rePresentation. At the risk of redundancy: this is not to say that the real does not exist.) Like perform- ance. and the "psychic" readers are usually trained in Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalytic theory (although rarely in practice). But before one can speak of a psychoanalytic physics or a physics of psychoanalysis one must first recognize how each system "proves" the impossibility of seizing the Real. Testing for the quantum is a hazard of probabilities if not fortunes. fotmed and set up their tripods on one side or the other . Finally. measured. the quark's. performance keeps one anchor on the side of the corporeal (the body Real) and one on the side of the psychic Real. "Love's interpretation . But it is to say that it cannot be seen.l Performance art usually occuls in t!e ¡¡spension between the "real" physical mattèr of "the performing body" and the psizchic experience of what it is tô be em-bodied. It does. Like a rackety bridge swaying under too much weight. Afterword: notes on hope . universities whose domain is the reproduction of knowledge must re-view the theoretical enterprise by which the object surveyed is reproduced as property with (theoretical) value. best guesses of events before and after the leap. One could employ both physics and psychoanalysis to read the body's movements and paralytic pauses. It might be fruitful to take the body as always both psychic and material/physical: this would necessitate a combined critical methodology. recalled.for my students The uncertainty principle fundamental to physics is based on the failure of the empirical to secure the real. Da. (Nor can the boson's.the "physical" readers are usually trained in movement analysis and/or history. the quantum cannot be preserved. the nervous system of matter is reflected in the nervous condition of psychic being. or the gluon's. arrested. pp." 7 See Felman. Plense FoIIoztt 1 This notion of following and tracking was a fundamental aspect of Calle. Problens in General Linguistics. 11 Some of the description of this perfonnance first appeared in rny essay "Feminist Theory. 6 Jacques Derrida. 3 Of course not all performance art has an oppositional edge. quoted in Ginsburg. 5 J. she has on other occasions worn the red one and the themes of "red" and "white" are constant preoccupations of her work. although easy to be by 15 In fact it may account for the intense male homoeroticism of so much of theatrical someone else's. Derrida's rereading of Austin also comes from an interest in the performative element within language. Event.2nd edn. Figuring Lacan: Criticism and the Cultural l)nconscious. B See my essay. It is hard to be shocked by one's own behavior/desire. Me.Notes. and not the politics of ambition. The Literary Speech Act. for a dazzling reading of Austin. and Performance. Tl-re ontological claims of performance art are what I am addressing here. esp. october 19gB. L. is accomplished precisely because the Being of the Mother is what is always already excluded within lepresentational econornies.law's _inability to think of a continuous body see Patricia Williams. 13 Festa actually began the Untitled performance wearing a white rabbit headdress. 22 For a brilliant reading of. Tribe (pp. 21 Randall. and critical theory for the African-American woman see Michele Wallace's Irtuisibility Blues. See Chapter 6 in this volume for further elaboration of this point. Again" for a ftìll elaboration." 12 For an excellent discussion of these guarded conditions in television. 2IS-20) for a full discuision. Horu To Do Things With Words. fiction. which is lighter and cooler than the red. 7 THE ONTOLOGY OF PERFORMANCE: REPRESENTATION WITHOUT REPRODUCTION earlier performance pieces. 10 The disappearance 9 Juliet MacCannell.s Tlrc Literøn1 Speech Act:21. "Signature. quoted in Shoshana Felman. Context. 14 This is one of the reasons "shock" is such a lirnited aesthetic for theatre.l91 interest in the abortifacient known as RU-486 is keen in part because eventu_ I to becorne a med_ical téchnology capable of :: åT. history. lor docurnentation of Calle's surveillance of a stranger. J- . See Jean Baudrillard Suite Venitienne/Sophie Cnlle.iå J :'äii JI L' : -t åï ïî'S. "Reciting the Citation of Others" for a full discussion of Modleski's essay and performance. Austin. 4 Emile Benveniste. "Saving Ameri ra's Souls": 26. 90-177. The smooth displacernent of the Mother's Being also accounts for the of the image of the Motl'rer to the hyper-visible image of the hitherto ulìseerì fetus. ::'"i liå. 2 See my essays "Money Talks" and "Money Talks. (relative) success of the visibility of the anti-abortion groups.Terry on video^-taped interview with Julie Gustafason. Poststructuralism. The heat during Untitled (in the nineties) was intense enough that she was eventually persuaded to abandon the white headdress. The Alchemy of Race and Rights. 192 Unmarked 8 AFTERWORD: NOTES ON HOPE power reassert ogy hierarchies altogether. An themselves or such as ACT-UP faces ed to dissolving dissimilar to the egalitarian ideol- .
Report " Unmarked: Ontology of Performance by Peggy Phelan"