Performative Images

The posted image is a piece of artwork by Gary Hill.

In his theatre, Antonin Artaud did not want the world to be represented in performance, but LIVED. This concept can be seen in the works of artist Gary Hill who tries to create powerful instillations that interact with the viewer in a performative manner. Hill admits to trying to achieve a performative status in his work, claiming that he focuses on the effect that his work has on the audience as much as on the work itself. Ultimately, whether an image is performative or not depends largely on the receiver of the image. This may explain Barbara Bolt's argument that, in non-Western cultures, images seem to serve a more performative function. In Art Beyond Representation Barbara Bolt highlights the performative relation between imaging and reality. Images should contain the reality of what the represent. She claims that "when life gets into the matter of the image, the image produces reality and thus casts its effects back onto the world". Only when this occurs, is the power of images to produce ontological effects realised.

Bolt claims that that works of art that exist as products well thought out in advance of their production adds to their potential performativity. This is true of Van Gogh's self-portrait in Annabel's post. Drawing on the cultural practices of indigenous Australian artists, Bolt argues for the material performativity of the work of art, especially of visual art. This work is performative rather than "merely representational". In many cultures, an image is thought to embody its object rather than by simply signifying it, a good example of this being the Catholic belief that during Mass the bread IS the body of Christ, in comparison to Protestants who believe that it is wholly representational.

Loxley, in his book "Performativity", states that something, language/an utterance/an image is performative if, in some way, it "intervenes" in the world rather than just describing it. An image can become performative if it does "something in the world" such as "pursuading or amusing or alarming an audience". The image below of a starving child being pursued by a vulture during the famine in Sudan shocked the world. It is now used frequently in the Western world to provoke people to donate to charity to eliminate poverty worldwide because of its ability to evoke feelings of guilt and shame. Loxley comments that performative images are usually "requests, orders, declarations" (2007: 2) This is certainly the case with regard to this image being used to request people to give generously to a charity.