Marina Abramović's "Seven Easy Pieces": Critical Documentation Strategies for

Preserving Art's History

Author(s): Jessica Santone
Source: Leonardo , 2008, Vol. 41, No. 2 (2008), pp. 147-152
Published by: The MIT Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20206555

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Marina Abramovic's Seven Easy Pieces:
Critical Documentation Strategies
ABSTRACT

I his essay raises issues of

for Preserving Art's History authenticity, authorship and

medium in a discussion of
performance, documentation
and re-performance. Its
object of analysis is Marina

Jessica Santone Abramovic's 2005 performance

series, Seven Easy Pieces,
including her re-performances of
Bruce Nauman's Body Pressure
and VALE EXPORT'S Action
Pants: Genital Panic. Seven
Easy Pieces strives to document
the past through manipulation

JL n his essay "An Archival Impulse," Hal Foster de umentation is not a new issue. of repetition and temporality;
Abramovic's re-performances
scribes a trend in contemporary art to produce works that re Having originated in a debate on act as performative documents
semble collections of data. He writes that archival art "not only the role of technology, specifically of the past performances she
draws on informal archives but produces them as well, and video, in a body-based practice and cites. Lessons learned from a
does so in a way that underscores the nature of all archival ma the possibility of reproduction by close analysis of re-performance
and performance documentation
terials as found yet constructed, factual yet fictive, public yet technological means [4], the pros
can provide useful insights for
private" [1]. Foster's reading develops an analysis of works that pect of experiencing a mediated and promote critical thought
"call out for human interpretation" as he emphasizes the performance has troubled perfor about conservation strategies
processes of memorializing and history-making so important mance art scholars for the past 15 for time-based art.

to early 21st-century culture [2]. While Foster's "archival im years [5]. What is at stake is whether
pulse" in contemporary art is easy to detect, I want to point in a performance produced solely for
stead to a variation on this trend?the drive to produce an electronic recording medium
documentation. can be evaluated in the same way as a live event. As Amelia
Although similarly concerned with re-creating the past, Jones so aptly pointed out in 1997, for young scholars today
artists interested in producing documentation have a sense studying early performance art, we can only know historical
not of the past as incomplete, as in Foster's account of the performance through documentation?and, more impor
archival impulse, but of history as incomplete. That is, these tantly, "there is no possibility of an unmediated relationship
artists are not interested in adding contemporary ideas or to any kind of cultural product," including performance art
structures to objects from the past; instead, they seek to con [6]. Whether one understands performance as always disap
tribute to the narrativized and/or mediated understandings pearing, endlessly mediated (technologically or socially), or
of the past that already come after an originary moment. Their perpetually repeating scenes of loss, the question of inter
production of materials is not archival in the sense of creat preting not the performance itself but its documentation
ing an ordering or logic to a set or collection, but instead com continually comes to the fore [7]. With this reliance on doc
prises work that repeats and multiplies an historical idea, umentation come attendant questions on the media of those
inflecting its image through a nostalgic lens. documents.
Documentation is here understood as a mode of produc Issues of authorship, medium and authenticity pose prob
tion of contemporary art anda, mode of critical interpretation; lems in discussions of performance art documentation. Each
these practices mutually inform each other and should be of these concerns stimulates the drive to produce, through
brought to bear on one another [3]. Problems raised by the repetition and multiplication, a host of materials related to a
existing discourse on performance documentation provide so-called "original." Authorship comes into question because,
the grounds for the present investigation and offer points of like the archival impulse, the drive to produce documentation
connection between artist-initiated, creative documentation is also conditioned by a relation to materials that are both
practices and institutionally sponsored documentation of con found and constructed?and thus by an individual who both
temporary time-based media arts. Indeed, the ephemerality manipulates existing documents and produces new docu
and interactivity (qualities also attributed to media arts) of ments. One must account not only for the perspective of the
performance art pose substantial problems for conservation documenter (occasionally elided when the document is pre
and preservation. Likewise, time-based media arts are fre sumed to be objective), but also for his or her engagement
quently preserved through some means of documentation that with the performance and the degree of subjective selection
in turn is often described as performative?that is, something apparent in the documentation.
that must be replayed, reread or reinterpreted in order to Secondly, one must address the medium and style of the
be experienced. A theoretical exchange exists between per documentation. Although scholars such as Peggy Phelan sug
formance, documentation, preservation and media art. gest that the documentation properly "belongs" to the medium
In the field of performance art studies, the problem of doc used and not the medium of what is documented, a broader
approach addresses the variety of ways that documentation is
Jessica Santone (researcher), Department of Art History & Communication Studies, only partly contingent on the technological medium selected
McGill University, 853 Sherbrooke Street W., Montreal, PQH3A 2T6, Canada. [8]. In either case, the medium matters, demonstrating how
E-mail: <jessica.santone@mail.mcgill.ca>.
artists and art professionals think about documenting as well

LEONARDO, Vo

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 as they how understand
in question. They offer docu
a view of docu ovic accepts "the condition of attempting
style
[9].
and its
mentation
The repetition
technology
relevance
that is caught to
up in a game ofto experience histories
and image reproduction. Au [16]. In Jacques employed
3 their
as they disappear"
Derrida's Archive Fever,
chosen medium consequently
thenticity in this case means copying thehe argues that an archive produces itself af
understanding ofdigital
signifier of the original. Although howat the moment ofand what
its own forgetting, in
means.
preservation specialists define authenthe space of its own loss?an archive is
Finally, the authenticity, reliability
ticity inand
terms of identity and integrity?
creative, opening to additional reading
sufficiency of documentation aremain
record's inarchival bond to an originaland interpretation, and destructive, al
question. The idea of a moment of
and itspure
uncorruptedness?what is at stakeways at the point of disappearing or be
in thisstruc
presence set somewhere in the past case of documentation is more theing forgotten [17]. Documents are the
tures and encourages the production
desire forof
an original, expressed throughfragments ofthat archive?individual his
documentation towards recovering a piece that signifies a whole torical accounts of loss. To document is
a fragmentary
mythic "original." I will return [13]. Identity is not mandatory, to emerge from and to continue to re
to these
original
three problems in more detail below,us to consider other factorsproduce loss.
prompting
after first inflecting these questions
that contribute to the impression of au In its original instantiation, Nauman's
through the specific example ofthenticity
an artistin re-presentation. Body Pressure (1974) was an installation: a
created documentation project:The medium of the documentationwall with an instructive-performative text
Marina
Abramovic's November 2005 perfor
that Abramovic produces, authorizes orattached, beckoning viewers to interact
mance series Seven Easy Pieces. uses is therefore part of a layered, knotwith the piece. The original piece was not
ted set of materials all hovering aroundso much performed by Nauman as it was a
the idea that some "original" precedespotential viewer-enacted performance in
Acting Out the current documentation. While her stigated by Nauman [18]. Interestingly,
Documentation own re-performances work as documenwhat seemed to be crucial about Nau
Performed at the Guggenheim Museum tation, providing a more embodied relaman's work was the openness of his in
in New York, Abramovic's Seven Easy Piecestionship with the audience than paperstallation, which prompted viewers to
appropriated five other artists' performdocuments might offer [14], the worksphysically engage with the wall by fol
ances from the 1960s and 1970s and in she re-creates are also spoken of (in pub lowing his detailed and provocative
cluded two of her own works?one oldlicity and gossip), videotaped and phoinstructions (Fig. 1). Abramovic's re
and one new [10]. For Abramovic, the re tographed by the Guggenheim Museumperformance consisted instead of a sin
maining documentation of Bruce Nau (replayed during the week of the pergular embodiment of the action, per
man's Body Pressure ( 1974), Vito Acconci'sformance on monitors in the museum
Nauman's instructions. Pressing her body
Seedbed (1972), VALIE EXPORT'S Actionatrium) and filmed by Babette Mangolteagainst a glass wall standing at the center
Pants: Genital Panic (1969), Gina Pane's(as authorized by Marina Abramovic forof a raised circular platform in the Gug
The Conditioning (1973), Joseph Beuys'sthe purpose of creating a documentarygenheim atrium, Abramovic responded
How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare of the event) [15]. Documentation ofto the commands that issued from her
(1965) and her own Lips of Thomas (1975)performance art's history in this case isown pre-recorded voice reading the Nau
failed to accurately or fully convey the exboth performative?in the repetitive,man text. The performance repeated
perience of the performance, motivatingritualistic gestures staged by the artistevery 30 minutes for the duration of
each night?and a controlled, techno seven hours.
the artist to bring these works back to life
[11]. Indeed, such documentation hadlogically augmented affair executed by By repeating the gesture of the per
become iconic in its continued reproboth the museum and Abramovic's filmformance, the pressing of a body against
duction as complex works were reducedcrew. These layers of documenting ena wall, Abramovic sought to recapture the
to singular images, belying the essentiallycourage consideration of how differentessence of the original performance?a
body-based actions that Abramovic un methods of documenting relate to recertain relationship between body and
derstood to be at the heart of these sixcalled originals. The technologies choarchitecture. In the process of reproduc
works [12]. Her reinterpretations play sen by Abramovic convey a great dealing the work repeatedly, on a 30-minute
with iconic images even as her manipuabout the artist's assessment of what asloop, the artist catalogued ways of press
lation of time, space and bodily presence
pects of experience were essential to the ing the body against a wall. Each repeti
works against the flattening of these
works in question. tion acted as a snapshot of one body's
works in art-historical memory. In the Here, I examine more closely two comengagement with Nauman's instruc
process of recuperating lost actions,ponents of Abramovic's performancetions. Marina Abramovic had specifically
Abramovic engages not merely with theseries, Body Pressure and Action Pants,planned and built difference into the
performances themselves, but more (aswhich provide evidence of the extendedwork, having recorded in her voiceover
Abramovic did not see the pieces perrepetition and embodied documentavariations in her reading of the text. This
formed by Nauman, Acconci, VALIEtion that the artist stages. In both rerepetition with variation reflects her in
EXPORT, Pane or Beuys) with their docperformances, the style and manner of terpretation of the openness of Nau
uments. Thus, as an author of new, per the original performance bears on thatman's text. At the same time, her use of
formative documents of these works,of its documentation. In each case, thesound recording alters the environmen
Abramovic is equally a reader and an in pertinent questions of authorship, metal relationship of the viewers to the
terpreter of other documents, staging dium and authenticity resurface. Theperformance. The single-sensory audio
her own role as researcher of perform constellation of documents that today recording both fragments (by breaking
ance art's history. surround these two works rehearse what up the experience of the whole work)
These reinterpretations act as reveris essential, while departing knowinglyand multiplies the performance image,
berations of single past moments ratherfrom the past's mythic hold, permittingacting as yet another performative doc
than as full re-embodiments of the worksloss. As Johanna Burton suggests, Abramumentation of Nauman's text, albeit un

148 Santone, Marina Abramovic's Seven Easy Pieces

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Fig. 1. 07-30-061407 (Daniela, Michael and Nathan reading and performing Bruce Nauman's Body Pressure [1974]), 2006.
(Photo ? Gordon Cieplak)

seen and larity

displacedofinPORT
a time had
performanc
fromwaw
visually re-performance
present at an
the does
art-house
Guggenh
Crucially,
much
when emagoers
repetition
presenting vie
(Abra
the
tiple stands of
variations up and sits tex
countering
Nauman's doh
movic primarily
rhythmsucceeds
of this
of in mo
representa
movem
tive), toward
performance Action Pants
screen. (20
The
stability
of his later talks,
tended Derrida
meditation descr
performanceon a
conditionAbramovic
of the book-cum-docu
hersits,
own legs
gaze
a leather
"stabilizing jacket
male
immobility" with
viewers t
[19].
expresses the
pants document
cut of as en
the Holdin
away. woman
the act of pointed
being indiscrimina
"male
saved, gaze"
becoming b
rectly
institutionalized.at VALIE
members
Abramovic'sEXPO
ofp
ance worksat well
a here
time. The
from in relation
artist
a mom us
idea; whileasher actions
opposed to continue
discourse the on
perfo
the thesimilarity
insistent source ies, for the
of her you
formre-
o
etitions?always
costume signified
artist
and pose by
was al
refe t
body?leavesduceda single
by 1960s
VALIE (almost
toEXPO
mar st
pression formance
of the tifyingof
work. gaze. Action
RepetitionPa
The stabilizing
controlling, re-performance
In her re-performance, Abramovic mecha
though hertion therefore
motionsemployed a "forced
change stages
look" as a signifying acco
a cycle, these action referring
movements
document, neitherback to the 1969 per are
of
derstood duces
as formance.
enduring,
the In a public
original talk after the
where per
Ab
slowly Abramovic's
continues toseries,
performance fix use
she recalled how "the
im of t
i
pressing very
emphasize
hard"
portant it what[20].
was for was
her to "feel the public" at
As with performance:
Body in a work that was "so much
Pressure, the about the
Abramov gaze
sion of VALIE
rectedEXPORT'S
atgaze" the
[21]. During the course Action
of the
audience per
Genital Panic also formance,
performance reproduces Abramovic ofand one youngAction th

Santone, Marina Abramovic's Seven Easy Pieces 149

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 of the perfor

3 en ab?me
facing us
of
wi
gun per VA
seemingly en
image throug
of the desire
ever, rather
the wall of a
ganized distr
authored wo
tiple users or
mentation of
to circulate
thorship thr
unstable tec
aim of re-cr
from the sum

Layering
Hierarch
Evidence
During a tal
posium Re-Pr
vator Carol S
hierarchy of
gari's own p
archival stud
terlives, her
tant connec
curatorial o
Within studi
servation, au
document, r
(computer d
relationship
the goal of e
What, howev
in the contex
ect such as S
Fig. 2. VALIE EXPORT, Action Pants
aluminum, 65 x 48 in,
thenticity
1969/2001.
co
(
authorship a
ers of docum
woman in the
tive audience
felt by these a witness exper
layers
intense hour-long
briefly gether?
eye-locked
sustained, is en
no
an The
occurrence encounter
that generated
I would with
like to suggest that, in works tm
cussion after
was the
equally performan
like Seven Easy Pieces?and in other
the ex
focus
discussion too
formanceis a amples
substantial
of
at artist-produced
that documenta poinp
peating The
the Guggenheim
original, through
tion projects?"authenticity" acts as a Mu
and word-of-mouth.
video of the Spectators
structuring mechanism.
piece Each document show
critics have commented
shiftingorganizes
around on
itself around the idea of an Abr
counter as one
during ofthethe
"original most
evening.
experience." The drive to pro int
ments of woman
the seven duce documentation
began night stems from a need
her series
face-o
Burton the
writes,twoforto cameras
produceexample,
a truer account of the past, a assu
"t
ent were cusing
held captive
more complete historyby
directly of whaton: a
happened near
( 1 )
long, wordless exchange
Abramovic, and how something was perceived. How betw
gazing int
artist andright
a youngand woman
ever, the (2)
layers the
of documentation around fa
brav
to inch woman,
up to the aimed
the closely
idea up
of an original, around a frag to
guar
form. After both
stare. These
mentparties of the thing it succu
cameras
or single moment f
tears, Abramovic
documentingself, cannot be thought
released of as nested her
(capture
girl document?the
departed" [22]. The
hierarchically value. Each doc vide
in terms of prose of
ical review ument touches
reflects
multiplication and at its root the
ofidea of the the
multip g
event of performing.
the encounter,
original, and then moves out from making
there,
formance available
From diverging inas
this layering
various ways,a person
connecting to of

150 Santone, Marina Abramovic's Seven Easy Pieces

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other documents, and producing an ac reappearance" [27]. Marina Abramovic'sHow can one usefully compare this
cumulation that is best understood col re-performances work on this model, mode of documentation to the institu
lectively. offering repetitions of fragmentstionally
of sponsored documentation prac
Generating this multiplicity of frag tices at stake in contemporary projects
the original performances as messy but
ments is a multiplicity of authors. Crucial like the Documentation and Conserva
fruitful reappearances of the historical
for understanding how documentation tion of Media Arts Heritage (DOCAM)
works. Re-performance proposes a dy
works in relation to an original is an namic, living document as a solution [30]?
to It is helpful to think of the myriad
appreciation for the specificity of au the past's disappearance; it allows aways
re that creative documentation proj
thorship of each document. How and at experiencing of the work in a time-based,
ects highlight loss, absence, fallibility and
which historical moment a document is body-based, ephemeral medium and technological mediation as inherent and
produced influences the character of the makes available new experiences of mem productive aspects of documentation in
document. To imagine a document that ory and the slipping of performance intogeneral. They remind us of the "found,
has authority over all other documents? loss. yet constructed" quality of both archives
because it entailed more research in its However, the reliance on other docu and documents. They encourage perfor
production or was closer to the time of ments, fragmentary and inconclusive, re mative and critical responses from us
the first instantiation of the work?re iterates the fact of loss of the original. By as we contemplate new documentation
stricts the memory of the work to a sin producing more technologically medi strategies.
gular perspective, discounting the variety ated layers of documentation, artists or
of ways it was and continues to be en conservators recognize the potential for
future loss and aim instead at an ever References a
countered. Instead, each individual doc
ument adds to the archive of the work. stabilizing memory. One viewer of Seven 1. Hal Foster, "An
2004) pp. 3-22; p
Although the multiplicity of authorship Easy Pieces writes of the works as "con
is clear in works such as Seven Easy Pieces, sensual failures" based on fragmentary 2. Foster [1].
institutional producers and collectors of documentation and memory; conse 3. This analysis emerges from the research program
documentation must also account for the quently, "in the remembering of the orig Documentation and Conservation of Media Arts
Heritage/Documentation et conservation du patri
inary events?I know them so well that I
specificities of different authors of docu
moine des arts m?diatiques (DOCAM), sponsored
ments. forget I didn't actually see them myself? by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Like the specificity of the author of the
the contradictions entwined in the Council of Canada and La Fondation Daniel Lang
lois pour l'art, la science et la technologic This proj
document, the medium of documenta (re)performance become the excuse not ect aims to analyze and propose practical solutions
tion also factors into an understanding to watch, become permission to leave be for preserving "new media art," characterized here
of the document's "authenticity." Here cause an intact, documented memory by a common reliance on 20th-century technologi
cal innovations that quickly become obsolete as well
the threat of a hierarchy of documenta will still exist" [28]. The presence of the as by similarities in terms of instability, variability,
tion is most apparent; some mediafilm arecrew produces not just a record of ephemerality and multiplicity of form, formats and
authors. One proposed solution is to develop a co
thought to better capture the "experi the performance but an excuse not to herent, comprehensive strategy for documenting
ence" of a work of art. To record time watch with the comforting knowledge work before it becomes obsolete, including what is
based artwork like performance inthata someone (or something) else will needed to record or capture these works of art. A
watch more critical set of questions must be addressed con
static medium such as photography is for us. currently: How does documentation change our
widely regarded as insufficient. In some relationship to the original work? What attributes
Conclusion:
cases, such documentation is thought can certain forms of documentation preserve and
how? The discourses on media art preservation
Documentation
to work against the very essence of the and performance art history both maintain loss and
and Preservation
performance itself [25]. Recording per disappearance as their prime adversaries (or co
conspirators). To address the documentation and
formance in film or video, although sub conservation issues at the core of the DOCAM re
stantially more successful at conveyingThat's such a delicate thing, how far you search project, the DOCAM Alliance has created a
the action of performance, also fails to
can go in the compromise without chang seminar for M.A. and Ph.D. students, beginning in
winter 2006. This seminar will continue until the
capture the presence of the performer'sing the meaning of the work, and how project's conclusion in 2009. DOCAM created the
body and, more importantly, the inter much living artists have to be aware of seminar with the aim of allowing partner universities
action between audience and perforthat and give as close instructions for in this project to develop it into a permanent com
ponent of their curricula.
mer (s) that is crucial to, if not definitive
preservation ofthat kind of work as pos
of, contemporary performance art [26].sible. What is our responsibility once we 4. See Peggy Phelan, Unmarked: The Politics of Perfor
are not there'? mance (London: Routledge, 1993), especially pp.
Mediating works of art?even for the pur 146-166; Philip Auslander, Liveness: Performance in a
pose of documentation?is thought to?Marina Abramovic [29] Mediatized Culture (London, New York: Routledge,
1999).
create distance from the original; the
more elaborate the mediation and the Intensely focused on documentation5. See, for example, Carrie Lambert, "Documentary
Dialectics: Performance Lost and Found," Visual Re
as preservation in her performance sesources 16, No. 3, 275-285 (Summer 2000) ; Henry M.
more different from the original in terms
of temporality and spatiality, the lessries,
au Marina Abramovic produced a workSayre, The Object of Performance: The American Avant
thentic the "reproduction." that uses repetition to generate docuGarde Since 1970 (Chicago: Chicago Univ. Press,
1989); Anne Wagner, "Performance, Video, and the
But one can imagine a different relamentation. Variation and change withinRhetoric of Presence," October 91 (Winter 2000) pp.
tionship to mediated artworks. Rebeccaher repetitions signal not only unique59-80.
Schneider discusses the historical repeti
authorship and creative interpretation, 6. Amelia Jones, "'Presence' in Absentia: Experi
but
tion of performance as producing a also irretrievable loss. Through
encing Performance as Documentation," Artfournal
kind of counter-memory?a different Abramovic's
way play with repetition of a sig56 (Winter 1997) pp. 11-17; p. 12.
of knowing history than traditionally
nifying mark and her mediations on sin7. While Phelan [4] writes of performance as disap
understood from archives. She valorizes
gle past moments, she points to thepearing (p. 146) ,Jane Blocker discusses performance
repetition, writing that "performancecollaborative
be work of documents in re as producing loss: Jane Blocker, What the Body Cost:
Desire, History, and Performance (Minneapolis, MN;
membering the past.
comes itself through messy and eruptive London: University of Minnesota Press, 2004). Jones

Santone, Marina Abramovic's Seven Easy Pieces 151

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 elaborates Cullen
on the
et al., Authenticity mediation
in a Digital Environment formance Symposium (New York: ofSolomon R. perf
Amelia
neapolis,
(Washington,
Jones,
mation Resources,
MN:

8. Phelan [4].
D.C.: Council on Library
Body
2000).
University
and Infor
Art: Guggenheim
Performing
recording:of 3
Museum, 8-9 April 2005) [video
9 April 2005,Minnesota
tape 2].
the

14. T. Nikki Cesare and Jenn Joy write that Seven Easy
P

24. Luciana Duranti, "La conservation ? long terme

9. For new media art, this question is particularly rel
evant, as practices like emulation and migration are
proposed to re-create works no longer available be
cause of the obsolescence of their media or compo
nents. See Howard Besser, "Longevity of Electronic
Art," in David Bearman and Franca Garzotto, eds.,
ICHIM01: International Cultural Heritage Informatics
Meeting: Cultural Heritage and Technologies in the Third
Millennium, Vol. 1 (Pittsburgh, PA: Archives & Mu
seum Informatics; Milan, Italy: Polit?cnico di Milano,
2001) pp. 263-275.
10. I was able to witness live the opening night of
Abramovic's performance series. I viewed other
nights' performances, including the artist's per
formance of Action Pants, on video, courtesy of the
Guggenheim Museum archives.
11. Nancy Spector, Jennifer Blessing and Joan Young,
"Marina Abramovic: Seven Easy Pieces," exh. guide
(New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
2005). See also Nancy Princethal et al., "Back for One
Night Only!" Art in America 94, No. 2, 90-93 (Febru
ary 2006). The article's subhead reads: "Her Goal:
Securing a Future for an Ephemeral Form of Art."
12. Marina Abramovic describes how How to Explain
Pictures to a Dead Hare is envisaged as "like a 20th
century Piet?," recalling the pose of its most repro
duced photograph. To recapture the fullness of
the performance action, Abramovic drew on video
owned by Beuys's widow. Adrian Dannatt, "Back to
the Classics [Interview with Marina Abramovic]," Art
Newspaper 14, No. 163 (November 2005) p. 40.
13. The comparison to digital records is relevant con
sidering the similar traits of ephemerality and time
basis shared by performance and digital records. For
more on authenticity in digital environments, see
Heather MacNeil et al., "Authenticity Task Force Re
port," in Luciana Duranti, ed., The Long-Term Preser
vation of Authentic Electronic Records: Findings of the
InterPARESProject (San Miniato, Italy: Archilab, 2005),
<http://www.interpares.org/book/interpares_book_
d_partl.pdf>, [12 June 2006]. See also Charles T.
Pieces was "as much a means of remembering these
pieces through an embodied documentation (a re
membering, if you will) as it was a new work in itself."
T. Nikki Cesare and Jenn Joy, "Performa/(Re) Per
forma," TDR/The Drama Review 50, No. 1, 170-177
(2006) p. 170.
15. Babette Mangolte's film Seven Easy Pieces by Ma
rina Abramovic premiered in February 2007. It was
not available at the time of this writing, but must be
accounted for in future analyses of this work. Babette
Mangolte, Seven Easy Pieces by Marina Abramovic, script
and performance by Marina Abramovic, HD Cam
tape 5.1 sound, videorecording (93 min.), 2007.
16. Johanna Burton, "Repeat Performance," Artforum
44, No. 5, 55-56 (January 2006) p. 55.
17. Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impres
sion, Eric Prenowitz, trans. (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1996) pp. 11-12.
18. Such a reading of Nauman's work points to
Abramovic's role as archivist of these historical per
formances and is confirmed by contemporary schol
arship on Nauman. See, for example, Janet Kraynak,
"Dependent Participation: Bruce Nauman's Envi
ronments," Grey Room 10 (Winter 2003) pp. 22-45.
19. Jacques Derrida, Paper Machine, Rachel Bowlby,
trans. (Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press, 2005) p. 7.
20. Bruce Nauman, Body Pressure, ? 2002 Bruce Nau
man/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, Pub
lished on "manual text," [1974] <http://www.e-flux.
com/projects/do_it/manuals/artists/n/N001/N00
lA_text.html> (21 November 2007).
21. Marina Abramovic, lecture (New York: Solomon
R. Guggenheim Museum, 18 November 2005) (video
recording).
22. Burton [16] p. 56.
23. Carol Stringari, conference paper for panel:
"Recording, Documenting, and Conserving Perfor
mance: The Practitioners," (Re)Presenting Per
des documents dynamiques et interactifs: Inter
PARES 2," Document numenqueS, No. 2, 73-86 (2004) ;
InterPARES: International Research on Permanent Au
thentic Records in Electronic Systems (Vancouver: Inter
PARES, School of Library, Archival and Information
Studies, University of British Columbia), <http://
www.interpares.org>, (21 November 2007) ; Pip Lau
renson, "The Management of Display Equipment in
Time-Based Media Installations," in Ashok Roy and
Perry Smith, eds., Modern Art, New Museums: Contri
butions to the Bilbao Congress (London: The Interna
tional Institute for Conservation of Historic and
Artistic Works, 2004) pp. 49-53.
25. See Carrie Lambert, "Moving Still: Mediating
Yvonne Rainer's Trio A,' " October 89 (Summer 1999)
87-112.
26. Jones [6].
27. Rebecca Schneider, "Archives Performance Re
mains," Performance Research 6, No. 2,100-108 (2001)
p. 103.
28. Cesare and Joy [14] p. 175.
29. Marina Abramovic, "Pure Raw: Performance,
Pedagogy, and (Re)presentation," interview by Chris
Thompson and Katarina Weslien, PA/82 (2006) pp.
29-50.
30. See Note [3].
Manuscript received 17 August 2006.
Jessica Santone is a Ph.D. candidate in Art
History at McGill University, writing a dis
sertation entitled "Everyday Performance and
the Social Life of Documentation, 1965-75. "
From 2005 to 2007, she served as a research
assistant for DOCAM through McGill Uni
versity and La Fondation Daniel Langlois.

11)2, Santone, Marina Abramovic's Seven Easy Pieces

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