Live recording: Temporal plasticity and the inderterminate present in time-based practice

This project investigates the relationship between durational actions and the (re)presentation of documentation within time-based installation. Examining the potential displacement, distortion, and transcendence of time effectuated by the manipulation of recorded information, this project also explores the self-reflexive experience of the artist through controlled actions devised to reflect these altered temporal perspectives. Repetition and rhythm are key conceptual and formal attributes of this project, in relation to both the actions performed and their mode of representation. The research has been informed by Deleuze's concept of the synthesis of time detailed in Difference and Repetition and Albert Camus' essay The Myth of Sisyphus in particular his position that 'one must imagine Sisyphus happy'. This perspective is complemented by Buddhist philosophy and informs this research through my personal meditation practice. In the context of this project time has been treated as both material and subject matter; a medium that can be suspended, erased, extended, and ultimately transcended through the use of recording and replay technologies. The transmutation of time as it is experienced has been comparably examined through cognitive means such as meditation and prolonged repetitive action. Within this project several works by Christian Marclay, Douglas Gordon, Daniel Crooks and Steve Reich provide examples of artists who employ the manipulation and reconfiguration of film, video, and sound to investigate temporal plasticity. While the relationship between the artist's experience of performing actions and the viewer's encounter of documentation is notably evident in the work and process of Tehching Hsieh, Bas Jan Ader and Song Dong and is supported by the writing of Allan Kaprow in Essays on The Blurring of Life and Art. The actions in this project have been performed to no audience. The rationale for this approach is an attempt to preserve the immanent cognitive state of the artist while performing, emphasising the artist's experience as an isolated, integral component of the work. This methodology also removes the privileged position of witnessing a live, originary event and via its documentation, presents a single, and infinitely repeatable, point of view. The understanding and analysis of the viewer's encounter with performance documentation is informed by Philip Auslander's The Performativity of Performance Documentation, and Amelia Jones' essay \Presence\" in Absentia: Experiencing Performance as Documentation. The works developed through this research apply diverse forms of installation practice incorporating video sound performance and sculpture. The outcomes of studio experimentation present a range of temporal phenomena that collapse suspend and interminably extend time."