TY - JOUR
T1 - Embodied historiography
T2 - Rupture as the performance of history
AU - Branch, Boyd
AU - Hughes, Erika
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
PY - 2014/11/2
Y1 - 2014/11/2
N2 - Embodied historiography is the practice of regarding performers as documents that are meant to be historically read and accounted for, in which the act of performance exposes our subjective processing of memory and historical events through the live layering of multiple perspectives. The Veterans Project is an ongoing work of embodied historiography in which veterans of the American military appear onstage in an unscripted forum where they are invited to share their stories. However, the individual narratives that emerge are in turn consistently interrupted/disrupted through the utilization of an evolving media system, inspired in large part by the work of Vilém Flusser that interjects various video, audio, and graphic media into the conversation. By consciously interrupting and thereby rupturing the narratives that each individual soldier has crafted with respect to his or her own historical framing of memory, we resist political teleology in both historiography and performance. The experience of these ruptures by the audience ultimately opens space for the contemporary experience of art that was promised by the historical avant-garde before becoming historical.
AB - Embodied historiography is the practice of regarding performers as documents that are meant to be historically read and accounted for, in which the act of performance exposes our subjective processing of memory and historical events through the live layering of multiple perspectives. The Veterans Project is an ongoing work of embodied historiography in which veterans of the American military appear onstage in an unscripted forum where they are invited to share their stories. However, the individual narratives that emerge are in turn consistently interrupted/disrupted through the utilization of an evolving media system, inspired in large part by the work of Vilém Flusser that interjects various video, audio, and graphic media into the conversation. By consciously interrupting and thereby rupturing the narratives that each individual soldier has crafted with respect to his or her own historical framing of memory, we resist political teleology in both historiography and performance. The experience of these ruptures by the audience ultimately opens space for the contemporary experience of art that was promised by the historical avant-garde before becoming historical.
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U2 - 10.1080/13528165.2014.985118
DO - 10.1080/13528165.2014.985118
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84919457456
SN - 1352-8165
VL - 19
SP - 108
EP - 115
JO - Performance Research
JF - Performance Research
IS - 6
ER -