Living Documents I-V is a series of by now five looped installations based on a documentary choreographic approach to five different artists and the way they work. The performance loops are 10-16 minutes long and are repeatedly performed (looped) up to 3 hours without break. Audiences are invited to come and go as they like. The work questions documentation practices of live work and explores the loop, i.e the repeated acts, as an ephemeral and non-linear documentation media.
The looped installations have been performed as part of exhibitions, conferences, as foyer acts in festival situations and as a walk between different spaces. Invited artists are Peter Mills (S/E), Anna Öberg (S), Jenni Elina von Bagh (F), Charlotta Ruth (S/A), Dominik Grünbühel (A).
In her Living Document Anna Öberg explores the tool of passing on (Swedish tradera), the multi sensorial transfer of material and knowledge from person to person and context to context. The loop can be attended through different levels of engagement; sitting / listening / watching from the inside of the circle, dancing in the circle with Öberg or from the outside observing the situation as a moving sculpture. The installation used three headphones with different soundtracks to re-contextualize the situation between folk dance, contemporary dance and anthropology. A situation that highlights that the process of passing on can never be controlled and that documentation depend on subjectiveness embedded in cultural, historical and political appearance.
“Within the genre of folk tradition passing on is a central notion. To pass on means that knowledge and material, over time and on winding roads transfers from person to person and from context to context. A multi sensorial transfer where repetition and reinterpretation are central in order stimulate oral and physical practices to live, rather than being a static archival process. This transfer is always filtered through and coloured by the social, political and cultural contexts where it takes place.” - Anna Öberg 2018
Premiere: Nov 24-25 2017, Labile Botschaft shared artist office Vienna
Also performed at: MDT Stockholm studio & stage (2019), Museum of Modern Art Stockholm (2019), The Theatre of Dalarna (Dalateatern), Falun Sweden(2019), Dansehallerne/Warehouse 9 Copenhagen (2019), Imagetanz/Brut Vienna (2020) - online version due to corona pandemic.
The methods of Living Documents were also presented in workshop format at Alliances & Commonalities, Stockholm University of the Arts conference on artistic research October 2018 by Charlotta Ruth and Anna Öberg.
CREDITS
CONCEPT AND DOCUMENTATION Charlotta Ruth and Dominik Grünbühel
CHOREOGRAPHY AND PERFORMANCE Anna Öberg
SOUND DESIGN AND PROGRAMMING Johannes Burström
SPACE DESIGN Luke Baio
GRAPHIC DESIGN Maiko Sakurai, Abudi Alsaleh
PRODUCTION Charlotta Ruth and Dominik Grünbühel
SUPPORTED BY ma7 Stadt Wien, BMKÖS Austria, Swedish Arts Council, Arts Grants Committee Sweden.
DURATION 3 hours