Chans: The Automatic Variations Time and presence in Automatic bai Chans

Abstract

This text is an examination of specific questions coming mainly from performance studies, related to the development of an installation and performance piece titled Automatic bai Chans. The first chapter deals with the concept of time. By means of confronting different texts from literature, reflections on cinema, and performance studies, I aim to formulate a theory of how time is dealt with in performance art. In the second chapter I will parallel the relation between Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries, with the relation between theatre and performance. I will deal with how performance is positioned towards interdisciplinarity, theatrical competencies, the concept of presence, and the question of representation. At the beginning of the third chapter I will present a description of the artistic project. Then I will examine the relation between expanding the process of musical composition, and the process of developing the installation. Finally I will address the issue of the potential tension that arises between the human body and the geometrical space where the body eventually performs. I will confront how this tension is managed in Automatic bai Chans, with how it was managed by the Futurists or by Oskar Schlemmer at the Bauhaus, in the beginning of the 20th century.