Art, performing

4. Works made through performance

By contrast with pieces created for performance, some kinds of art involve performance not in instantiating the work but, rather, as an essential element in its creation. This is typically the case in cinema. Unlike a play, a movie is not completed as a work when it is scripted; movies must be made, and performers contribute to this process. Once finished, the cinematic work is screened, not performed. The cinematic art work is the master print, which is multiply instantiated by prints cloned from it. The same is also true for some kinds of music, such as electronic pieces that use tapes of the voice or instruments as their source material; the work is the finished master tape and the copies made from it.

An interesting puzzle is raised by popular music, in which discs derived from the master have a dominant status and ‘performances’ frequently involve ‘lip- and hand-synching’ to recordings. (Multi-tracking might preclude genuine live performance.) Is the importance of these recordings a sign that they are definitive of the work? If so, artists’ rerecordings of their own compositions result in new works, not merely in new performances. Alternatively, is it that the recording is a model instance that may be performed live? In that case, the recording is the more important, not because it is that work’s only instance, but because it sets the standard for the work’s subsequent performances. (Or are these questions redundant, because the piece has become the music video, which has superseded the audio tape?)