Andrea Pagnes (VestAndPage): Body Issues in Performance art: Between Theory and Praxis

A NDREA P AGNES (V EST A ND P AGE )

BODY ISSUES IN PERFORMANCE ART: BETWEEN THEORY AND PRAXIS

1. STATEMENT ELEMENTS
Performance art is a culture bound. It is always related to the specificity of a particular context, situations
and circumstances. 1
It is a discipline that is practiced and moves along the ridge that exists between an action that just refers to
itself, and a live art work intended not just as a mere corpus of actions, but mainly as possible instrument
of expression and communication, aimed to create or decipher a particular experience.
This could be possible only by producing meanings. Only meanings give actions a sense: lacking in
meaning, any performance actions would lose its impact, and be scattered, poorly becoming a mere end, an
empty joke.
The performer is outside of any usual or pre-ordered language; the performer sees things from many
different perspectives, through a magnifying glass. Paradoxically, its as though the performer doesn't
belong to the human condition and, moving towards mans essence, first of all the performer sees the action
itself (and the need to act) as a barrier. Instead of seeking first to know i.e. the mans name, it's as though the
performer establishes immediately a silent contact with the essence within (him/herself) and then, turning
towards that other species of things that for him/her are actions (touching them, feeling them), the
performer discovers that there is a specific tenuous light, a particular affinity with the earth, the sky, water
and all those things that are. Not knowing how to use them as a sign of some aspect of the world, the
performer sees in the body, which acts, the image itself of one of those aspects.
A performance, live or recorded, is life itself: it is primarily real. It stimulates memory activation, sentiments,
instinctual feelings and the most intimate beliefs of who is participating. However, to achieve an inner
shifting, a transfer of the Being to another dimension (real but not ordinary) in his appearance, it is
necessary to communicate differently - but thoroughly - through gestures or primary actions, establishing a
relation between performer and spectator with no obligations or forced intentions. Actually, performer and
spectator are interdependent to each other, and, in different measure, reciprocally impressionable. Thus,
while body and soul, movement and perception are evident proofs of reality, at the same time they are a
laboratory of memory and representation. For that, a performance is really valuable when it arrives to
investigate territories where ethic and aesthetic find their common ground.
Impermanence, identity, transfer, emotions, denial, introspection, idealization, division of the inner Self, its
intimate essence in relation to the others, the objects and the surroundings: to perform within these topics
means to move on that edge separating the realm of reality from the Utopias one.
During a performance the many different sensorial perceptions shape an itinerary that evokes non ordinary
stimulations, at the same time offering a whole range of information to awake the inner sight, and to realize
what it may be the ineffable that everyone carries inside himself.
The (human) Being exists essentially for the interaction of three fundamental factors: the biological sphere,
the social-ecological one, and the inter-psychic one. In the reality, when one or more of these areas get in
conflict with another one, the human being, to protect itself from the loss of inner balance and the crisis that
follows, tries to find remedy by using defensive devices. Everyone does. Nevertheless, there is something
inside each one of us that seems to be still impossible to define in precise words, but it exists and acts:
someone calls it mystery, some others psychic-spiritual experience.
The term action comes from the Latin word actionem (nom. actio), from the pp. stem of the verb agere, and
from the pp. stem of the later activare. It means the state or process of doing; to set in motion; to operate and
organize activity to accomplish an objective; the causation of change by the exertion of power or a natural
process; a movement, a manner of movement or a series of movement; a behaviour, a conduct (also
habitual). In some other cases the term action can indicate to urge, to drive, to chase, to stir up.
Hence, with particular reference to performative action, it is necessary to consider a priori the performer as
primary element - action-maker - of the action itself with performer's performing body. However, whether
the presence of the performers body has to operate and act within the action itself, and in which measure it
must be visible, perceptible, and tangible to be said performative action, it is not precisely defined yet.
Perhaps to analyze the idea of the body as essential element of any performative action, and investigate the
possibility of action and representation on the surface of the so-called visible body, it is maybe useful to
revisit some specific cultural prodromes about the word body.
For instance the Arab (Sufi) culture states three different expressions to define the word body: Gesem, Gesed

Andrea Pagnes (VestAndPage): Body Issues in Performance art: Between Theory and Praxis

and Beden.2 These three terms are clearly specified in what they refer to and in how, consequently, they
indicate the three single, distinct elements (or bodies) by which the body is subdivided:
Gesem- is the body-body, the concrete biological, mechanical substance, the tangible, anatomical structure,
which consists of flesh, bones, muscles, blood.
Gesed- is the mind-body; the brain; Latins intelligenzia: the mental structure, which supports and controls the
Gesem (body-body).
Beden- is the psyche-body, the psychosomatic element of soul movements and true, transparent and subtle
emotions, which equally can express themselves through the Gesem (body-body), and also influence Gesed
(body-mind).
The three bodies reciprocally influence each other.
It is consequential that a specific question arises when someone try to analyze a particular, performative
action, in order to understand which of these three bodies is more helpful and suitable to try and give the
action a precise definition.
Of course the action pertinent to the Gesem (body-body) is easily perceptible and clearly definable; but what
happens if the action is due to the use of Gesed (mind-body) and/or Beden (psyche-body)? Can these two
bodies be in action without having an obvious, visible output (expression) on the Gesem (body-body)
surface? How can we perceive them?
The task for any artist, which works with/through the artist's own body, as material for
representation/action, would have always be to achieve a natural equilibrium and balanced strength
between those three bodies. Hence, during an actual performance, it may happen that the spectators do not
visually perceive any action of the Gesem (body-body), but it will be always important to remind that in
those moments the Gesed (mind-body) and Beden (psyche-body) of the performer are somehow set in motion,
and that they are actually working and making action.
If these three subtle bodies are elements that belong to the performers body once it is activated to operate
during any performative action, they consequently interfere with all the following categories, which should
be properly analysed and to be intended as aspects of the three bodies of the performer, not just as an artist,
but more, as human being.
Thus, also the work of an action artist is based on a continuous addition and subtraction, constantly
moving from perception, intuition and impression to expression, never forgetting that spontaneity,
directness, and naturalness are targets and not starting points.
Masters such as Eugenio Barba and Kassim Bayatly insist on the fact that an art action has to arouse interest
(through the body), persuade (through the mind), and communicate emotions (through the psyche),
although emotionality is something to evoke and not to merely act, trying wrongly to put it into some sort of
effect directly.
Hence, it is like to say that a performance artist must never get excited, or identify himself/herself with a
particular emotion ending to become poorly sentimental. To produce emotions, a performer must essentially
adhere with what the performer is doing, that is a question of pure involvement.
As the sense of holiness is given by repetitive gestures, similarly body movements have to be endlessly
repeated, until the body memorizes them completely, in order to be then effective during the performance.
Breaking the symmetries, amplifying and reducing, changing, transforming, thinking by oppositions to
subvert the ordinary configuration of things can organically play out the performers posture, position,
attitude, demeanour and gestures. This is made possible when the performer has reached a full awareness of
his/her body limits and possibilities, and, during the action, always paying attention to principles that
belong to space dynamics (the virtual sphere where the body is contained, the sphere of the other, and the
sphere of the outer space which confines with them; space dilatation and space compression; the many
possible different body positions and height); time dynamics (movement lasting, quickness and rapidity,
slowness, pause, without compromising the action in terms of rhythm and energy, and causing a loss of its
quality); body weight dynamics (equilibrium, balancing, act, strength, energetic intensity).
Besides all this, a performer has also to be aware that seductions and thoughts are obstacles for the mind:
they obstruct it, impeding mind freedom and relaxation, which are necessary both to compose and act.
Actually, these hindrances reveal the mind in its weakness and liability, letting the Ego to interrupt, corrupt,
judge, criticize, and conspire against one of the foremost human quality: to be tuned by sensibility and spirit,
both for performer and spectator.
Like Theatre, Performance art is a work of the spectator too, pertinent to the spectator's attention and
consciousness: it is the spectator who has to interpret and decipher signs and symbols used/given by the
performer, and this even more when the action is interactive, when it requires not just an actual presence,
but an active participation, reaction and response.
Body dynamics (the use of the space containing the individual) and movement dynamics (i.e. body

Andrea Pagnes (VestAndPage): Body Issues in Performance art: Between Theory and Praxis

articulations which determine and sustain a series of movements) converge into relational dynamics, which
are carried out and came true by non-generic sequels. Relational movements offer possibilities to a variety of
expressions (face-eyes-head-arms-hands-legs-feet-torso-back-body), due to some natural intentions such as:
to get closer, to get far, to avoid and resist. These movements are of two different types: transitory or nontransitory. When the transformation of movements that pass one into another is clear, a clear sequel of
different images in motion is enhanced at its best.
The rhythm of the expression needs all these elements: for a performer the question is not just what I have
to do (pertinent to intelligibility), but mostly how to do it, to find the right proceedings to reach a
maximum degree of credibility and sincerity.
When our senses allow us to go beyond the materialistic schemes of ordinary things, we activate a different
scale of inter-connective messages and impulses, which - interacting between one each other - lead to
achieve a more pure and non hyper-structured way of communication aim to evoke associations and to
generate concrete modifications that refer to something different. For example a ritual dynamic can activate
and indicate different processes of social relation, provided that it is not invasive or constrictive: it is simply
used like invisible instrument of recognition.
Inside someone's own Self, intimately, privately, everyone realizes how much humble, harmonious, non-acritic, passive someone can be, and mostly is.
Similarly, remembrances, ideas, actions and interventions: when they find a common ground to flow
together, they can give birth to an experience both individual and collective at the same time. An experience
that is civil, social, primarily poetical as part of a creative process, that is finally the result of an aesthetic
course, a process of making which carries within clearness and significance.
An art action interferes with the limits of human abilities, objective or subjective. A prolonged effort can
efficiently test these limits, once it is guided by consciousness, patience and decisional ability of the
performer. In this way it is possible to create a flux of lasting energies throughout physical and real images
that the body - being inside a given space - implements in a fixed period of time. The becoming itself turns
to be a practice focused on exploring to find new codes of expression and relation, so that possible truths
and reality can interfere to transform into something unusual but strongly perceivable.
Images produced by the mind, dreams or visions, change throughout clear physical actions, and - as
mediators of the ineffable - become pure impressionable sensuality. More than the five human senses, the
heart is the foremost sensor that allows an individual to look inwardly and profoundly, so far to get a more
pure and concentrated perception of the many possible configurations in the scheme and in the configured
system of the things.
To understand and comprehend is a question of profound feeling and flow of energies: it represents the
extreme limit of any artistic process; as well as, in the same way, it happens when an intuition occurs for the
activation of the memory, may it be genetic, collective or individual. For this, it is required an effort of whole
empathy, between being and surroundings, as well as a deep comprehension of what does mean entropy
throughout physical, mental and spiritual perception at the same time.

Andrea Pagnes (VestAndPage): Body Issues in Performance art: Between Theory and Praxis

2. PERFORMANCE ART: A SOCIAL ROLE BETWEEN ETHICS AND AESTHETICS

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I will meet you there.
(Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi) 3
In his prophetic Six Memos for the Next Millennium, Italo Calvino enhances Lightness, Quickness,
Exactitude, Visibility, Multiplicity and Consistency as indispensable qualities to cherish literature.4 It can be
considered a definition or, better, a six-faced metaphor that can also be easily applied to economy, Internet
and media communication and, specifically, to interactive Performances and Art Actions.
Today artists and performers are increasingly developing a need for new instruments, and new ways of
thinking about their work. Concepts, like Daniel Golemans emotional intelligence 5 - an indispensable
attitude, an alternative and potential complement to traditional technical and rational abilities , social
intelligence and eco-intelligence are carefully evaluated and kept in high esteem.
Unexpected structural models emerge from this scenario, like the network organization in which each
performance artist can be not a mere virtual link, but more a real knot within a greater valuable-creation
system, one that requires, new models of expression as well as strategic approaches. To implement this
actual status, qualities such as, transparency, flexibility, and pneumaticity 6 are essential to indicate what is
the necessary capability of being adherent and/or adaptable to many different present situations and places
discreetly.
Performance art world is becoming progressively oriented toward networking globalization and innovation
of communication. This idea is an increasingly vast concept that is being applied already to technology, as
well as to internal political end economical processes and contemporary society too.
Hence also the performers role is changing: by becoming increasingly less an actionist of reputed and
supposable nonsense, and increasingly more a communicator of things once considered impossible, the
performer's work helps to accomplish these things in a better and clearer way.
Strategy of action and vision setting, clarity in the definition of objectives and possessing extreme reactivity
to the unpredictable, are ineluctable qualities which a contemporary performer must have within the
working area, between commitment and pleasure, in order to search for a balance capable to match with the
needs of new work realities.
The urgency of a greater communication between the inside and outside of the system has always been a
social need that follows from its origins, between exaltation and oblivion, until reaching the current
overwhelming of data, which seems always near to explosion.
Out of this perspective, art actions become expressions of a language that has made understatement its
credo, also to face those streams that treat art results as if they were mere bits of information or superfluous
products. For instance, the manifested need to investigate the interface existing between living space and
people, to act transparently according to ideas and feelings, using art action itself as an intelligent skin
capable of mutating the physicality of the body into a dream matter, a tool for inner data activation,
amplifies and reverberates the identity of a communication between performers and the others, outlining
new indications about how to live this life, using carriers of meaning precisely addressed to evoke what is
stored in our memory, which exists but often seems somehow forgotten: the ineffable.

Andrea Pagnes (VestAndPage): Body Issues in Performance art: Between Theory and Praxis

3. THE LAWS OF COMMUNICATION: SPACE, TRUTH AND BODY IN ACTION

In our modern times, it has originally been Heidegger who related art and language in an unusual way.7 To
consider Art as a tool for a profound reflection onto reality, the nature of things and their laws, was the
beginning of assuming new responsibilities towards times changes complexity for mankind.
Since then Art has started to offer to mankind new, unexpected and more concentrated ways to look at the
realm of the things. Looking at reality from different perspective brought Man back to that same reality
equally transformed with it, or in open contrast and conflict.
The same notions of space and truth move throughout different level and degrees, intermingling
continuously between the real and the virtual. However space is an original, primordial phenomenon that
might provoke some sort of fear too.
Actually space can offer itself as a limit, something that cannot be overcome and that doesnt allow to go
further: a challenge both for language and thought. The concept of space has an evocative power. It put our
mind in the position to claim for other concepts such as to widen (also metaphorically), to clear or to create a
void in order that something can happen like a proper event (not container of contents, but content to
contain contents; examples of which are Le Corbusiers Chapel of Ronchamp, John Utzons Sidney Opera
House, and Frank Gherys Bilbao Gugghenheim Museum). This also to say that places where an individual
is born and growth are important because they affect to some extent in the formation of character and
personality, they determine, in the words of Lorenz, a kind of imprinting.
On the other hand, Truth, in art, is not an experience to be imposed to Man like the objects evidence. Far less,
it is not even a sentence, a verdict, a ruling or a declaratory judgment. It is a delicate encounter, connected
much more to the atmosphere and the environment than to the presence: it is a combination, a gathering and
convergence of occasions and situations.
Joseph Beuys indicated very well the fact that contemporary art has ingrained inside itself the tendency to
destroy tradition. Nowadays there are different forms of culture: every person can surely develop his/her
culture by his/her own. That means that every person, as free human being, is capable to make, produce
and have his/her own culture. Every person can have a canon, although that person's point of view will
always be partial.
The risk, as well as the actual point of discussion, is that anything is frantically consumed, therefore
becoming not ideological, but often folkloristic. However it cant be neglected the fact that people are always
somehow connected, tied to a profound common root, wherever they might be during the course of the
evolution: a root deeply grounded into the collective genetic memory. Consequently the idea of anthropos is
due to criterion of political, cultural, social, civil and territorial integrity, which means that it is tied to a
whole series of integrities that create the independence to be able to make a synthesis with a certain weight
and consistency. It is also for this reason that, in art, differences mostly exist because of a matter of quality.
Therefore, when an action artist has clearly made the decision to use him/herself as a tool or, better, as a
mediator of expression and communication, s/he can do anything without firstly considering bodys
biological laws. To redesign or offer some of those that can be defined laws of communication, s/he must
always be responsible to use his/her body primarily for its metaphorical value, nullification, truth, having
always clear in his/her mind that when the body lies, it always confesses.

Andrea Pagnes (VestAndPage): Body Issues in Performance art: Between Theory and Praxis

4. WHAT IS THE BODY

To be an action artist means to improve the Self-knowledge by investigating the cutting-edge existing
between what I want to do and what someone want to do of/about me. Therefore an action artist must
primarily recognized him/herself as a tool of his/her own work.
Often performance artists have mostly to deal with investigation of the Human Body throughout its own
reading, to focus on their own Body (and its own signs) as peculiar/predominant mean of communication:
the Human Body and its own ways of expression; Real Body - Virtual Body - Hybrid Body as pars
construens of art action; the Human Body and its own interactions with the others and within reality; the
Human Body interacting with auxiliary tools/media (video/sound technology and devices).
4a. Conceptual Lines
It is more or less accepted that Performance art cannot do without the human form.
The development of today Performance art research has been motivated from the study of gesture, posture
and, the sound of silence, and progressed into different areas of body investigation. This is the platform for a
string of theoretical works in constant evolution and transformation. On the other hand, in many live
performances, of which the essence is not what is said or shown, but how and what is communicated
throughout the whole body as membrane of spirit, voice, sound, said or written words, and video images
are adopted only as vehicles for a poetry pure expression. Therefore it is consequential that here the body is
considered as an unknown landscape that invites one to explore its hidden manifestation, while emotions,
feelings, movements, and sensation due by them, are the unstoppable flowing stream that traverses it.
To come to a range of whether solo or collective works/performances, it is must be always clear that more
than a technical one, it is an aesthetic control and a manipulation of space (holy but empty space at the same
time) that can drive both performer and the participant/spectator through creative and sensitive imagery
and body language, into an open confrontation to enrich experience. For this, also Performance art
workshops are a fundamental practice once aimed to investigate principally human existential conflicts, as
well as the often hidden but truly existing relationships between humans and their discomforts and diseases
(social-psychic-spiritual) which derive from one each other.
Philosophers and researchers such as Bojana Kunst 8 and Teresa Macr 9 assert that the impossible body of
today is an extreme but however possible concept that deals with one of the most topical subjects in art,
science and humanities: the relation between the human body and a machine. Visionaries, fantasts,
philosophers, scientists and artists have imagined the impossible body as a machine, an automaton, a model
of a digesting duckling, Golem, a homunculus, an electrical soul, an engine, a wax figure, a marionette, an
iron woman, an Eve of the future, a glass man. All of these impossible bodies are subjects of an
extraordinary study that comprises a period from the birth of modern science in the 18th century until the
avant-garde artistic research of the 20th century and the new production of the beginning of the 21st.
In so far the contemporary body has been genetically modified and simulated by digital manipulations,
and, consequently, its organic boundaries completely re-designed. Hence, transformed into a place of
signification in progress, reshaped its meaning, now it must be considered not anymore as a mere object, but
a full fledged subject.
Actually, if we look at today Medicine, Science and Technology, we cannot avoid to accept ourselves as
witnesses of our own continuous bodily mutations and, by the way, are we really aware of our body
mutations through diseases and the consequent cures we look for fighting them? We really realize that we
walk only if to walk somehow hurts us.
Nevertheless, to investigate (or show, or demonstrate) - only and just only - which are the effects on the
human body of what it has been stated above, it is not the main subject. In fact Action Art is mainly a
research to explore and lead the vital capability of the body (at whatever condition it is left or subdue) to
interact with reality and become a true visual place in which and where meanings
(social/individual/spiritual) are produced.
The essence of this particular kind of work is not to produce new models or icons through some
demonstrative uses or arid performances of the human body, but through the body offering new possibility
to understand art as distinctive discipline that can lead us to a profound consideration about our destiny in
our time, beyond the same boundaries of body representation, and even beyond also what is enrooted in our
collective imaginary, as it can strongly bring back to nature what our deceptive mind sees as hybrid,
synthetic, troubled, diverse, different.
Contemporary visual culture will obviously always be the common ground of recognition to investigate
where to follow the traces of human mutations and conflicts; cultural, spiritual, corporal. However, this

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direction will necessarily lead us out of that configured space; it will invite us to enter into the real and
virtual space where each one of us live, into the so-called exhibition/production spaces of our own social
and hybrid bodies, the full space of body experience where the melting pot is a cosmogony that is
biological, analogical and digital: le lieu dhabitude of our daily life.
4b. Analysis
Starting from the assumption that art manifests the invisible in the visible, suggests the possible by
confronting the impossible, opens unforeseen realms, bolsters that urgent desire to reintegrate art and life, to
reaffirm and re-identify with ones cultural roots, to reclaim lost or denigrated sources of knowledge, to
valorise the visual as opposed to the verbal in art, it is consequential to consider valid the following
hypothesis: for as the world spiritual condition improves, aesthetic quality will be increasingly valued.10
According to this instance and considering aesthetics itself the basis of ethics, the performer (as creative
person in action) ethical core developed through art is very influential in the performer's later ethical
choices. Where can one evade an uncomfortable truth without doing wrong? it is not only a question to
seek for a common sense, or to determine social issues and values; it is more a matter of personal decision.
The ethics of the performer is outlined by different instances: which values should s/he determined
(normative); how an outcome can be achieved in specific situations (possibility); how his/her capability
develops in different situation; how his/her nature transforms (spirit/psyche); what indications people
actually abide by (action and representation); the retraction of his/her Ego, to work on the inner Self as
instrument of Self-knowledge.
A performer must not interpret something a priori assumed: a performer must act in accordance with
his/her nature to realise his/her full potential. In fact, according to Socrates a self-aware person must act
completely within its capabilities to their pinnacle, to become aware of every fact (and its context and
circumstances) relevant to his existence, if he wishes to attain self-knowledge.11 Actually it is completely
useless to imitate or interpret something a priori: this will cause distraction both for the one that acts and the
one that watches. A performance action is needed to bring to discover and unveil the Self. To stir up and
provoke emotions (inside us, inside the others) it is primarily necessary to externalize what is hidden inside
someones own heart, soul, and life experience. Only in this way - through the reconciliation with the inner
Self - is offered the opportunity to re-establish a contact with the mystery that each one of us carries within
him/herself. To reach this condition the work must be silent, patient, concentrated, and meditative.
4c. The Issue of the Question
What are human rights, and how do we determine them?
If someone else can make better out of his/her life than I can, is it then moral to sacrifice myself for them if
needed?
Without these questions there is no clear fulcrum on which to balance law, politics, and the practice of
arbitration, so the ability to formulate the questions are prior to rights balancing. For example, making
ethical judgments regarding questions such as Is lying always wrong? and, If not, when is it
permissible? is prior to any etiquette.
Jean Baudrillard theorised that signs and symbols or simulacra had usurped reality, particularly in the
consumer world.12 Post-structuralism and postmodernism are both heavily theoretical and follow a
fragmented, anti-authoritarian course which is absorbed in narcissistic and near nihilistic activities.
Nevertheless people in general continue to be more comfortable with dichotomies (two choices).
Actually, in ethics the issues are most often multifaceted and the best-proposed actions address many
different areas concurrently where the answer is almost never a yes or no, right or wrong statement.
Relational and interactive actions are related to an ethics of care. In Performance art topics such as the ones
that involve the mind and are relevant to that issue: respect, responsibility, development, character, virtue
and vice, altruism, egoism, disagreement, evolution, behaviour etc., are assumed with a value-free approach
to ethics which examines reality not from a top-down a priori perspective, but rather from observations of
actual choices made by agents in practice.
The performer is a poet (of actions) and an artist at the same time. He doesnt play or interpret: he gives and
delivers. His body and actions, the process of making them, are instruments of creative freedom.
Performers (poetic) actions are at once obligatory and at the same time un-enforceable. Anything for
him/her is a matter of consciousness and responsibility, Begeisterung und Wrde (enthusiasm and dignity).
At the base of the performers work there are many elements/factors s/he must consider: to seek for

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his/her own archetypes; to work on concentration, breathing, voice, sounds, body movements, objects, as it
is necessary to bring the soul impulses, the mind disposition and the spirit to a minimum degree, in order to
re-direct the Self to discover unknown territories, only relying on an absolute creative freedom; to adopt and
form a new own methodology (individual and/or collective); to search for the most profound, primitive
soul qualities; to discover what is useful for him/herself to externalize his/her own story; to confront
his/her own story with others, creating a non-casual synthesis of his/her own biography; to feel to be
connected; to search for mutual sharing (with the others and ones environment).
A performance artist final work mustnt be a narrative staging, a mere mise en scne, or self-celebrative
representation, it must rather be a revelation from which a number of different experiences can be organize
trough mutual relationships, in order to express something different out of them.
4d. Defining a Possible Grammar
For a performance artist it is necessary to get completely involved, directly and personally, to get off the
ground, to put the Self over the barrel, to bring into focus and undermine beliefs and prejudices, to arrange,
to tune, to compare, to confront, to offer, to sharpen, to bare, to uncover physically and emotionally, to
arrange, to put away, to tweak, to put at risk, to hazard, to lay it on the line, to hit for, to strike down, to
ground, to dump, to put on, to banish, to try out, to tax to the limit, to meet, to collect, to edge and hive, to
drop down, to hammer away at something, to get started, to break into, to sleuth and get forth.
In this kind of work, narcissism and egocentrism are obstacles. In fact, if the performer is subdued by
personal ambitions during his/her particular work, he/shell never deepen one of the most profound secrets
of creativity: to see, understand and comprehend his/her own heart. The performer will never become the
man/woman of his/her own side if the performer's heart is busy with other personal things such as the
desire of showing off, of becoming exceptional, unique etc. Actually it is the retraction of performers own
ego to allow him/her to be re-born as new Self. The psychic action that the performer expresses is not just
the result of a profound experience, neither a genial representation of the performer's inner life. It is the full
concordance of the performer's own inner imagination with the context around him/her. In this moment
performers private personality is put aside, forgotten and a range of completely different moments emerge.
It is out of these moments that performers new Self arises.
So far, to get close to truth, a performer must never be artificial, or pretentious, if so it is much better to make
mistakes.
It often seems that today artists (and particularly action artists) are all doing a complete useless job, but in all
times people have always had a manifested need to make art. Therefore the task of an artist is - and will
always be - to question the presence of Man in this world, which is always more than a condition.
Art is a constant, continuous research on Man, and to perform arises from the need to reflect on Man
problems and human relationships. When a performance artist acquires competence on humanity (which
means Poetry), then s/he can also approach and use technology in a right way. To understand technology
(its use and meaning) is a pure creative act as well. However it is also important to remind that an artist is
not a mere machine, but that s/he can only relate technological devices to him/herself, and vice-versa. To
understand and comprehend the external world is always part of an analogical process: individuals are not
softwares, and performance artists indicate many different similarities, and then they try to translate them
in many other different terms, always with their body language.
When technology becomes to be a part of the artistic and creative work, it is not mainly to transform it into
something spectacular or particular (here is the mistake), but mostly to ingrain it into different and more
various metaphors, which are always other ways of economic expression, in the sense of quickness and
synthesis.
Being contemporary means to bare and tune our own Self into something, and to deal at the same time
with one and the others own economical being and creative one.
Personally, I continue to believe that today has still more and more a sense to talk about (and re-consider)
the concept of social sculpture formulated by Joseph Beuys, in which society as a whole has to be regarded
as one great work of art (the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk) to which each person can contribute creatively.
Whoever produces something, that person does it with an aim, a goal, and the production it is never a mere
end in itself: it is always related to an object, that is production of something. On the contrary, an ethic
action (or moral too) is always an end in itself, because to act ethically is a goal, and the desire is desire of
reaching that goal. The goal of the production is something else from the production itself, while the goal of
the action matches with it: to act ethically for good is an end in itself.
Aristotle was the first to distinguish the actions of humans in two different forms: the poisis, which is the
direct action aimed to produce an object that is autonomous and extraneous to the producer him/herself;

Andrea Pagnes (VestAndPage): Body Issues in Performance art: Between Theory and Praxis

and the praxis, which is related to actions that have sense of themselves inside themselves.13 All moral
actions, positive or negative, which are not aimed to a specific production of objects, fall within the idea of
praxis, which has been the predominant concept of the meaning of the term action in all European
languages. To act as practice, which in this case is the equivalent term of morale.
Finally, a performance artist has also not to forget the importance to determine a style, as carrier of precise
qualities with specific meanings within themselves: a style that enables to define social, cultural, spiritual
values, that belongs to an individual, as well as better - to an entire society.

Andrea Pagnes (VestAndPage): Body Issues in Performance art: Between Theory and Praxis

ADDENDUM
ON PERFORMATIVE ACTIONS: GESEM, GESED, BEDEN IN MOTION. POSSIBLE EXAMPLES.
1. Creation-Action
The performer creates functionally a concrete object or an installation during the performer's action. Hence the performance consists of
the presentation of the result of the process of making to an audience, as like for Jackson Pollock, who considered his act of creation/act
of painting an autarchic, self-reliant piece of art, with the result of the creation and presentation of a final concrete object/piece of art.
2. Action-Action
It is a pure action- an action of the performers body-body (Gesem) in relation to object/s, space, time or person/s.
2a. Closed Action-Action
It is an immediately readable action with a predetermined and foreseeable ending/result. The closed action-action consists of one
simple action with precise starting and ending. It merely serves to arrive to an end conceived a priori. Just right after its beginning, one
can already see and determine in which way the action will finish. The interest of the spectators lies within the questions of how the
action will develop, and how long it will last.
2b. Open Action-Action
It stimulates curiosity and tension through manifold symbols and/or changes of rhythm, objects, space and relation. It is a form of
action that starts and gives no (or not many) concrete hints on how it is going to develop further. The moments of surprise and change
of elements/topics, rhythm or intention can arise all at a sudden, and shift the action towards any other reading/interpretation. Many
contemporary performance actions are under this category.
3. Poetic Action
It is an action where the use of strongly related objects and settings are aimed to stimulate non-ordinary impulses within the spectators.
It evolves in a way similar to dream-sequences, and it can appear surreal.
4. Repetitive Action
It consists of a concrete repetition of one action-element until its natural exhaustion.
5. Inter-Action
It involves the audience as active (or inactive) participant/element of the performance.
5a. Voluntary or involuntary participation of one or more spectators
The performer(s) invite or force the public to participate actively in the performance action, therefore questioning on their position as
spectators and their responsibility within the progress of the action itself. The limit between presenter and observer is torn down, and
the community moves on a common ground of reciprocally impressionable range of actions.
5b. Relating to the audience
At a certain moment of the action, the performer nullifies the boundary between himself/herself and the spectators limit by
approaching the visitors and offering them personally a left over as memory-gift of the performance action, specifically objects which
are elements of the performance.
6. Non-Action
It is the category pertinent at the previously mentioned above aspect of the three bodies, Gesem, Gesed, Beden. Here the Gesem (bodybody) is obviously in a state of non-action, i.e. in an inactive, representative pose kept for the entire duration of the performance
presentation. Beyond the visual impact that this created still-image can have on the viewers chain of associations, the elements of
action of Gesed (mind-body) and Beden (psyche-body) can be observed with particular care, as well as their direct or indirect influence
on the minimal changes (i.e. physical, facial expressions) of the Gesem (body-body).
7. Destruction-Action
It is an action based on the destruction of an object by the performer as sole action or, as a final release of a long-endurance previous
action. It can produced tension within the spectators, as they will start questioning themselves on what will finally happen, or if will
something happen at all.
8. Body-Action
It is an apparently predominant Gesem (body-body) action, which investigates the relation of the mechanical body in space and time, or
the reactions of the various biological body-body elements like blood, flesh, urine, etc.
9. Conceptual Action
Conceptual actions can take place without the presence of the actions artificer, but then they request the active involvement of one or
more other participants. Gesed (mind-body) here is the foremost active element- it previously creates a construction of mind-concept to
be realized after (mostly by others than the author) in a specific final action or presentation.
10. Sentimental/Personal Action
It is an interesting combination of all the three bodies that starts as an impulse from the Beden (psyche-body). These performances are
re-elaborated through the Gesed (mind-body) and finally realized with the Gesem (body-body). These personal actions tell about
personal and emotional aspects of the performers life, intimacy and story. Once they are elaborated and supported by a precise mindstructure, they can also speak of a broader social context.
11. Invasive Action/Provocative Action
It is an action that confronts the spectators with particular situations by exalting prosaic normal statements, ordinary behaviours and
bourgeoisie aspects, or by exposing taboos, such as sex, violence, and blasphemy. Often the exposure of genitals is to provoke
debunking socio-political statements within the witnessing audience.
Further considerations
To reach the most possible balanced composition in each artistic discipline there are however some laws of conduction to respect.
This is also valuable for Live art action and Performance art. Materials, proceedings and the whole process of making are to be
sufficiently and, equally levelled to a certain degree in order to intermingle and dig deep. An accurate assemblage contributes to make
the action dramaturgically clearer.

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Andrea Pagnes (VestAndPage): Body Issues in Performance art: Between Theory and Praxis

Notes:
1. Bergquist, Karin. Philippine body art. Retrieved April 5, 2009 from http://www.culturebase.net/artist.php?1342.
2. Bayatly, Kassim. La Struttura dei Corpi Sottili. Milan: UbuLibri, 2006.
3. The Essential Rumi: New Expanded Edition. Translated by Coleman Barks with Reynold Nicholson, A.J. Arberry, John Moyne. New
York: Harper Collins Publisher, 2004. p. 36.
4. Calvino, Italo. Six Memos for the Next Millennium. New York: Random House/Vintage International, 1993.
5. For a more thorough investigation, see: Goleman, Daniel. Emotional Intelligence. New York: Bantam Books, 1995; Social Intelligence.
New York: Random House/Bantam Dell, 2006; Ecological Intelligence. New York: Random House/Broadway Books, 2009.
6. Concept already codified by Getulio Alviani to conceive lighter and more liveable spaces in his Manifesto Sullo Spazio Pneumatico.
Milan, 1967.
7. Heidegger, Martin. Poetry, Language, Thought, New York: Harper and Raw Publisher, 1971.
8. Kunst, Bojana. The Impossible Body - Body and Machine: Theatre, Representation of the Body and Relation to the Artificial. Ljubljana: Zaloba
Maska, 1999.
9. Macr, Teresa. Il Corpo Postorganico. Sconfinamenti della performance. Milan: Costa & Nolan, 1996, 2nd ed. 2006.
10. Ocampo, Yuan MorO. Concept. JIPAF2000 program, Jakarta, 2000. Retrieved June 16, 2009 from http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~ee1sari/jipafcv.html.
11. See: Lawrence C. Becker and Charlotte B. Becker, editors, Encyclopedia of Ethics, 2nd Edition in three volumes, New York: Routledge
Press, 2002.
12. Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacres et Simulation. Paris: Galile, 1985.
13. Aristotle. Ethica Nicomachea, Book VI.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Resumed and revisited from:
Pagnes, Andrea. The Fall of Faust - Considerations on Contemporary Art and Art Action. Florence: VestAndPage press, 2010.
Excerpt published by Art&Education, April 2011.
Lectured paper at: Universidad Nacional Experimental de las Artes, 2010, Caracas, Venezuela; Facultad de Artes y Teatro, Universidad
de Chile, Santiago de Chile, Chile, 2010; Universidad Austral, Valdivia, Chile, 2010; New York Steinhardt University, Venice, Italy, 2010;
Academy of Experimental Arts, CEC, Sattal Estate and New Delhi, India, 2011; Helsinki Theatre Academy, LAPSody International
Conference on Live art, Helsinki, Finland, 2011.

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