Page 60 - Studio International - September October 1975

private emotions public and general, but
dealt with more direct space experience,
using existing buildings as obstacles to be
overpowered through physical effort.
One piece consisted of performers
appearing over the top of a building. They
proceeded to walk down the seven stories
of its vertical face, supported by
mountaineering equipment. Another
work, using the same mechanical support,
took place along one wall of a gallery at
the Whitney: the performers moved at
right angles along the vertical wall-face.
The audience would virtually swing back
on their chairs in an attempt to view the
dance sideways on, rather than from the
top as they were obliged to do, as though
watching the action from a few floors
above ground. So within one conventional
gallery space, Trisha Brown forced a
further inversion of space perception by
working against the laws of gravity.
She then reversed the process by
executing performances with six dancers
lying on the floor, going through various
movement sequences. The audience stood
around them and had to tip slightly
forward, heads bent, to gain an overall
view of the choreography on the ground.
Or they sat on the floor next to the
performers, thereby seeing different parts
of the body, soles of feet, top of head, side
of torso or thighs. Articulating the body
on the floor eliminated problems of
balance, tension and gravity pull which
occur when working vertically in space,
and also allowed for quite different
figurations.

Spectator space
But the 'integrity of each gesture,' which
Trisha Brown has said is central to her
work, is something of which we are seldom
consciously aware in ourselves. It is only
through becoming spectator to our own
actions, either in a mirror which reflects
`present time,' or through video which Dan Graham Opposing Mirrors and Video Monitors 1975
relays not only present, but also past
gestures, that experience is truly learned.
In a recent piece, first shown at Projekt, divorce our exterior behaviour from our outside himself on the woman, observing
Cologne in Summer 1974, and again at inside consciousness — whereas video her objectively through the camera
the Lisson Gallery, London, Dan feedback does just the opposite, it relates connected to the monitor ...' The
Graham used both mirror and video to the two in a kind of durational time spectator space in this and other similar
show each participant the 'accumulation' flow."' pieces is, according to Graham, to do with
of their own movements. By using mirror But Dan Graham's pieces (particularly social and perhaps even anthropological
and video, one reflecting the other, he the pre-Projekt work) could be studied aspects of performance. His more recent
incorporated also a sense of future time. not only as an investigation of time and works however, involving larger numbers
On entering the cube one saw oneself space, but also as a theory of audience/ of people, were structured so that the
first in the mirror and then, 8 seconds performer relationship — 'spectator space' experience of space and time were added
later, saw that mirrored action relayed on as he calls it. In line with this idea, the to the earlier more 'psychological' pieces.
the video. Present time was the viewers' mechanics of many pieces were built so For Graham the particular interaction
immediate action, which was then picked that the audience was at once the between individuals, their action in
up by the mirror and video in rotation. performer." This interest was based on public and private space, and the
One saw not only what one had recently Graham's involvement with Bertold constructed spaces, made the pieces more
performed, but knew that what one would Brecht and his theory of audience- `architectural,' in the sense that
perform, would then become on the video performer relationships. He architecture implies these relationships.
what one had just performed. Thus the concentrated on Brecht's idea that in
visitor had to adjust to both present and order not to alienate audience and Private and public space
past time, as well as to an idea of future performer, a self-consciousness and
time. All future action, the entrance of uncomfortable state should be imposed The various works described above were
others into the structure, was anticipated on the audience/performers. often intended to divert the conventional
as one waited to see how they would Two Consciousness Projection (1973) function of the gallery as 'showing
reappear in present time as recordings of examined the level of self-consciousness objects' by using it as a place to
past moments. which could be projected by performers : experience experience. Concept art
In this piece, Present Continuous Past, `In this piece a woman focuses implied in its early stages, directly or
Graham explored the convention of consciousness only on a television image indirectly, a critique not only of the
mirrors as reflecting present time : of herself and must immediately object but also the circle of art market, art
`Mirrors reflect instantaneous time verbalize the content of her consciousness. critic and art institutions which
without duration . . . and they totally The man focuses consciousness only surrounded it. By making so much of the

534