Georgia Wall

From Unseen Performance Series I (2010)

With the Unseen Performance series I investigate methods that allow the body of the performer to be unseen by creating performative structures that rely on the interpretation, memory and perception of a select number of viewers.

The structure is as follows: viewers are invited to watch a live event I perform for them alone. After the one on one performance, the viewers provide a description of what they have seen. Their accounts become the seminal material, as I manipulate them to create documentation and narrative, giving weight to their perception of my performance as I allow it to become the work. The voices and faces of these viewers become the vehicles, mediators and translators through which the original event can be experienced. In this process I am interested in exploring how meaning is made as well as examining the concept and construction of “truth.”

Reconstructing the event through the accounts is ultimately an attempt to provide those coming to the piece an audio/visual experience from which the original performance can be recreated in their minds. Through Unseen Performances I explore the ways in which a performer’s physical identity can remain undefined so that it can be redefined endlessly with each the viewers’ engagement with the work and the unseen body described.

© Georgia Wall