AMS GROUP C: A comment on Kati's presentation

This post is going to try to comment on Kati Röttger's presentation on her use of the concept 'performance'. She draws our attention towards theatrical performance, and in doing so, she underlines the importance of being aware and reflecting on the medium (mediality). The video of Gómez Peña, is just an example of this. It exposes the loadedness (non-neutral) of the apparently transparent medium, i.e. the video. Upon analyzing this, we have come to the following understanding:

• The video has the power to manipulate our gaze. Through close-ups and framing we are constantly guided in our perception of things. We are made to see what the camera wants us to see in the way it wants us to see it. There is a forced identification of our gaze and that of the camera.
• We also thought it is interesting to think upon the relationship of the stage and the camera. The camera man is also a performer. If we stood as a spectator on a third point, apart from GGP and the camera man, we would be able to see him performing. Although, this is not the case through the video. 
• There is a parallel (mirror-like) structure between the two 'shooting devises' involved in the video. One is the gun, which is pointing directly to the camera man and indirectly to all of us, spectators. The other, we never see and realize the presence of, is the camera. The camera is also 'a gun'.
• The camera 'shoots'. The use of the same verb for both camera and gun is not innocent. Coming back to the example, we realize that in fact the most violent event is not the portraying of a man handling a gun pointing at us. It is probably the use of the medium, the purposes it serves, that can have a destructive power, through selection and marginalization of the images portrayed. It is the 'use' of the image on the screen which is really violent.
• Mediality 'lives' in-between 'performance' and 'theatricality'. It is both a theoretical and practical tool to be used. Therefore, it is terribly well suited for a field such as 'performance studies'.

Swati, Ian, Diego

Amsterdam Group A Response to Kati's Lecture

Gomez Pena's use of the conception of "risk" as a driving force behind the A Muerte needs to be challenged. Due to the work's mediality, the risk inherit in being confronted with a loaded gun is depreciated on several levels. Firstly, formalized conventions and archetypes at work within mass media, namely the presentation of the gun and the inherit risk for violence, are strikingly familiar and thereby devalued of its shock. Secondly, due to the idea of representativity the spectator questions the verisimilitude behind the gun and whether it is actually loaded or merely an illusion, requiring our suspension of disbelief into a fictitious world. Ultimately, though, regardless of whether the spectator invests fully into the reality of the loaded gun the immediate risk of violence is removed due to their lack of physical co-presence in the same space of Gomez Pena. While the lack of physical co-presence does not reduce the theatricality of the piece it does subdue Gomez Pena’s conception of risk.

These issues appear as secondary modes of inquiry when juxtaposed to Gomez Pena's attention to laying bare the processes of mediality present within A Muerte. That is, rendering the invisible mechanisms of video mediality visible. Through paralleling the pointing, and potential shooting, of the gun at the cameraman to the pointing, and "shooting", of the subject by the video camera Gomez Pena transfers the direction of the gaze.

We find A Muerte especially intriguing in the context of the Gomez Pena’s larger body of work, a taste or which can be sampled at his blog:

http://www.pochanostra.com/dialogues/

Gomez Pena’s exploration/exploitation of physicality through archetypal gestures within A Muerte is reminiscent of his work within The Chica-Iranian Project Orientalism Gone Wrong in Aztlan.

http://www.pochanostra.com/chica-iranian/

Thank you for your presentation, Kati! Hope this finds you all well in the digital sphere.

Jess and David.