Performance Diária

“This project came up in a fluid, unpretentious way, adapting to the apprehensions that surfaced throughout its elaboration. I have always thought of performance as a language of activity and constant questioning, and speaking of recorded performances as a discourse often gives me the heebie-jeebies. I am bothered by the idea of presenting a piece of work live, and then, in order to keep it on display, leaving a written script, a music score, or photographs and videos at the venue. I have sought out a few strategies to solve, in a more comprehensive way, the recording as a poetic tool in itself, rather than a simple resource for memory preservation or to transform recollections into products.

In recent works of mine, I proposed the permanence of set designs, of the title, and of a short description of the performance, with no images or clues as to the actions that were performed. Thus, I realized that all my projects comprised a set design, or the use of objects that relate to my body and its dimensions.

In pieces like Geometria sobre conforto (2011), Lições para pessoas e coisas (2011) and Ponto de fuga (2012), objects used in the performances indicated what had taken place and alluded to the presence of a body through its absence. This led the public to ‘experience’ the sets or adapt their bodies to a situation tailored for my own body. This prompted me to consider how active participation does not boil down to just observing and reflecting. Through the recording, one can also generate extensions of these actions proposed by the public.

These factors laid the groundwork for the elaboration of Performance Diária (Daily Performance). I decided to draw up one performance a day, with no set time limits. These drawings should be accessible in a blog I had to update every day, by 10 am at the latest. I was thinking of the act of drawing as performance, and of the act of posting as a live, active recording of those actions.

This dynamic attracted followers who would rush me as the posting time drew near, and the pressure led to typos, not-so-refined drawings and anxious ideas that lacked creativity. The process made me realize the importance of staying true to departures from my intentions, which were always very clearly outlined and observed. The posts would record my daily emotional state, and so I decided to create a year-long emotional primer.

Publisher N’Versos released the piece as a book, and from then on lots of people started making drawings and sending me photos of the actions, creating a new chain of research and documentation. Here I wasn’t the doer, I was the proponent. THE PERFORMER was created with this dynamic: a character who was the author of the drawings, conceived as the artist active in the imaginative actions. This spawned the O PERFORMER blog, still ongoing, of which he is the author. 

Once the work was exhibited, I realized the audience looked for the drawings from their birthdates or specific dates. Some people would constantly visit the exhibition to see, then see again and feed upon it. This bred an open field of reception and observation and made clear the importance of recording as proliferation of knowledge, as opposed to the idea of simply documenting an event.

All these aspects relate to the performance and the questions it raises. In dealing with the audience through a direct connection, endless memories are created. And this work, to my emotion, performs and is performed.”

Felipe Bittencourt in a statement to PLATFORM:VB (July 2015)