Victorian College of the Arts - Theses
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ItemEnduramorphosis: A point of dynamic strangeness( 2022)This thesis will offer a framework through which to better understand endurance performance practices in the visual arts. Endurance performance is comprised of three core dynamic and mutually affective elements: space, time, and body. I propose that these contingent elemental interrelationships can give rise to a state that I call enduramorphosis—a neologism describing a point of emergence within which a particular strangeness can occur in a work of endurance performance through and at its near breakdown. Importantly, enduramorphosis is produced through a performing body that reacts as it undergoes transformation through reciprocal effects of physical and psychological duress. I argue that this barely perceptible and overlooked phenomenon transforms the ontological nature of the performance action itself to register as an elusive, experiential residue of excess. Although not necessarily perceived visually, enduramorphosis takes form through a dynamic, multisensorial, internal, and reactive set of processes. By developing and testing a practice-led method and framework built around this assertion, I seek to demonstrate how mutually informing relationships between space, time, and the body can—under certain conditions—give rise to this phenomenon. I also describe how performance in “pandemic-time” during the COVID-19 pandemic produced enduramorphosis in mediated livestream and video formats to create another dynamic form of liveness. I find that endurance, both as a method and compositional element in performance, pushes against the limits of space and time, including pandemic-time, in a manner that is made manifest through the performing body. Finally, I locate the unfolding of enduramorphosis as a point of dynamic strangeness in which a work of performance might open and potentially become something else altogether. I find that this shift is perceived through an excessiveness produced within and through the performing body as it undergoes a transformation that lasts.