Liminal Performance

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Liminal Performance

Author(s): Gary Hill, George Quasha, Charles SteinSource: PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Jan., 1998), pp. 1-25Published by: Performing Arts Journal, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3245872 .

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LIMINALPERFORMANCEGaryHillin conversationwith George Quasha and CharlesStein

G aryHill's eminal ndinternationallyelebratedork nvariousmedia-especiallyvideo and installationart (with a broad orientationincludingcybernetics, lectronics, ound,language,andimage)-has beenexhibitedat majormuseums around the world includingsolo exhibitions at GuggenheimMuseumSoHo in New York,Stedelijk n Amsterdam,Hirshhorn n Washington,D.C., Museum of ModernArt in New York,CentreGeorgesPompidouin Paris,Kunsthalle n Vienna,WatariMuseumin Tokyo,and Museumof ContemporaryArt in Los Angeles, among others. His writingshave been publishedin CameraObscura/24,Illuminating Video:An Essential Guide to VideoArt and Video Commu-nications,No. 48, as well as numerouscataloguesand books devoted to his work.Overthe yearshis work hasincluded ive performancencorporating,or instance,video projectionand complexuses of text and sound,sometimes n collaborationwith others, ncluding hepoet/artistsGeorgeQuashaand CharlesStein, and,mostrecently,choreographerMeg Stuartand her company,DamagedGoods, basedinBrussels.Hill's friendshipand multifacetedartistic associationwith George Quasha andCharlesSteingo backto the late 1970swhen he livedin Barrytown,New York,andparticipated n projectsat the ArnolfiniArt Center in Rhinebeck(founded byGeorgeQuashaand SusanQuasha),under the sponsorshipof their artsorganiza-tion, Open Studio,Ltd.TheQuasha-Steinollaboration, eginning n theearly70s,has included sound/textperformance, ecordedby Hill in his 1985 video TaleEnclosure,nd an ongoing "dialogical rocess" hat has led to differentkinds ofwork, includinga seriesof articlesand books on GaryHill (seeBibliography).George Quasha's books include, as poet, Somapoetics, Giving the Lily Back HerHands,and the forthcoming n No Time,and,as editor,the anthologiesAmericaaProphecy:A New ReadingofAmericanPoetryrom Pre-Columbian Times to the Presentand OpenPoetry.He hasexhibitedasvisualartist, aughtat SUNYStonyBrookandother universities,and servedas co-publisher/editor f Station Hill Press(since1978) andBarrytown, td. CharlesStein s the authorof numerousbooks of poetry,including TheHat RackTree, criticalstudyof the poet CharlesOlson, and is the

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editor of the anthologyBeing=Space Action:Searchesfor FreedomofMind in Art,Mathematics nd Mysticism.He has exhibited as photographer,aught in BardCollege'sinnovativeMusic ProgramZero and at SUNY Albany,and servedasassociatepublisher/editorf StationHill PressandBarrytown,Ltd.

QUASHA: Youridentity as artist seems complexvirtually rom the beginning:sculptor, ound artist alsosculptural), ideoartist,creator f installationsinvolvingelectronics(especially ideo),language rt("videopoetics," s wehavecalled t), andperformance rt.The latter s perhaps he leastwelldefinedand thereforehe mostinteresting round o break n the present ontext.Butyou startedout asa sculptor,workingwith metal. Let'sbegin by tracingwhy you turnedto video.HILL:There were a numberof overlapping vents that took placefrom 1969 to1973 whenI wasliving nWoodstock,New York. dida lot of sound workwith mysculpture-sounds generatedby the metalconstructionshemselves.Then I beganusing taperecordersworkingwith tape oops,feedback, nd otherelectronic ound.I had a little EMS synthesizern a briefcase.At around he sametime, andfor themost partby chance,I did some recordingwith a portapak hat I borrowed romWoodstockCommunityVideo.The fluidityof tapingandviewing n real-timereedup my thinking n a veryradicalway.Suddenly he sculpture had beendoing forseveralyearsseemedoverwhelminglyediousand distant from this present-tenseprocess.Video allowedthe possibility o "thinkout loud" as if with some "other"self.It was a continuously elf-renewingituation-like "reality,"et themonitoringgaveit a sense of hyperreality. erewas an immediately ccessibleprocess hat wasa seeminglymuch closerparallel o thinking hanbasicsculpture.The veryfirstthing I did was to recordmyselfas I watchedmyselfon a monitor.Then I playedthat back on the monitorandrecordedmyself nteractingwith thispre-recordedmageof myselfon the samemonitor o combine he recorded nd the"live."This reallyhadnothingto do with making magesbut was rathera kind ofexternalizedthinkingpertaining o coherencesbetweenmind and body.After thisinitial discovery first made a coupleof tapesin which therewas no editing,noeffects.Then I did sort of a performance iecewith a friend:we paintedcoloredrectangles ll around he town at night.Afterthreeor fournights,therewerea lotof them, and we got caughtandwerearrested. made a documentary bout it thatincluded ndividualresponses ndsuggestionso questionsas to whetherwe shouldput up more,remove hem,etc. It wasinteresting owtheresponses orrelatedwithpropertyownership ndprivate/publicpace."Decorating"he warmemorialn thecenter of town was a lot more taboothan we hadimagined.QUASHA: Sculpture,sound, performance, treet performance-this sequencetouches a lot of bases hatreappearn yourwork.Perhaps ideo,givenits historyofincreasingportability,"takesto the streets"even more easily than theatreand

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performance rt.Perhaps ideois intrinsically erformancert,particularly ith theadventof the portapak,whichif I'm not mistakenalsomarks he beginningof self-conscious"videoart."HILL: Often, especially,during those early days, I would indeed "taketo thestreets"-just to seewhatI couldsee, so to speak.And, asyou say, nevitably herewas a certainself-consciousness.herewassomethingaboutthe extensionof one'snervoussystemthroughthe camera hat madefor the possibilityof connectingtotheenvironmentn averynewway.But evenwhenI workedwith a conscious dea,with a conceptualparameter,herewasalwaysa lot left up to the "medium"nd tothe event itself.This usually nvolved feedback oops of some sort-some way oflooking at oneselflookingand/orperforming ome kind of activity.Many of myearly single-channelvideo pieces were in a sense "system-performances"hatgenerated heirown time in relation o realtime.There arereally o manyfolds intime involving media, feedback,delay, writing, speaking,and the body. Timebecomesmore ike a Mobiusbandor Klein bottlewithoutan absolutely"real"ide.STEIN: So even though there is a real time element-going into the street andrecordingwhatyou see-this getsplayedoff in relation o another enseof time thatemerges n the specificpiece.QUASHA:Both sensesof time involve"performance":treetperformance ndin asensestudioperformance.We'llbe lookingat thequestionof studioperformance swe go along here,but for the moment I'm wonderingabout how the notion ofperformanceunctions n relation o installation.n bothtapeandinstallationworkyou create tructuresn which certainkindsof performancerereleasednto action.The differences thatin installationwork,whichwill perhapsbe morelike theatre,thestructure ndits resultingperformancesrehappeningn a physical paceratherthan on tape. Some of your installationsare, from very earlyon, in some senseperformance ieces,mostobviouslyWarZone(1980) anearly"interactive"pieceinwhich the viewer/visitorn a sense"performs"heworkin a way that is specifictoeach viewerand eachviewing.That piece, with its objectswhispering heir ownnamesthrough inyexposed peakershatviewershadto approach,mademe thinkof an experimental/interactiveheatre et.HILL:Exceptfor the obviousfactof a chargedactivated pace,I'm not sureaboutthe installation/theatreonnection,at least asa generalization. here havecertainlybeen self-conscious pproacheso bridging heseforms-Robert Wilson comes tomind, but in his work, however architecturalts origins, there is always that"theatrical"inge. From the other side, where the theatricality s really at aminimum, it's interesting o look at something ike Vito Acconci'sSeedBed Thedifferences ertainlyhaveto do with scaleandperhapsntendedaudience. myself,even though at times I come dangerously lose to theatricality,ry not to let thework cross he line.Rather,here s alwaysa senseof opaquenessn thewaythattheworkis not callingout foran audience,or forthatmatter,not callingoutsideitselfatall.Perhapshisis leftover rommysculpture ays,but theautonomyof the work

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itself is still something that I'm very awareof, at least in terms of keepingtheatricality t bay.At this point perhaps t's worthmentioningmy firstvideo installation,Hole in theWall(1974)as akind of bridge romsculptureo video thatwasaconceptual ormalpiece installedat the time in somewhatof a politicalcontext.The worktook placeat the WoodstockArtists'Association,which like many other placesat the timedidn'tacceptvideo as an art form. It consistedof settingup a camera n frontof awall and "framing" sectionof the wallthrough he viewfinder hat is equal n sizeandshapeto the 20' b/w monitor,whichwouldlaterbe inserted here.Then, usingthis fixedcamera, recorded real-timeprocessof cutting throughall the layersofthewall:muslin,wood, aluminumpaper,andfiberglass, ntilfinally he lastboardswerepenetrated nd the outsideworldappeared. he tapeof the entireprocesswasthen repeatedly layedbackon the monitor,now fitted to the hole in the wall. Theimageon the monitorwas of courseon exactly he same scale as its content. Herethen is a work in which the performancetself is seen as a video memory, hownatthe site where "it"happened;and yet the object/sculpture spect of the workmodulates the performance ime by its stasis, its physicalpresence.Is it stillperforming?t wascertainlya politicalact in the art-world f Woodstock.STEIN:Youwere n fact"installing"ideo itself nto thespaceof visualart! t'sas ifyou abandon one familiar erritorywithoutcrossingentirelyover to another,butremain n a liminalspacebetween.QUASHA:The notionof"liminality,"whichI havefound useful n poetic practiceandin defininga "metapoetics"circa1969:the inquiry nto the principlesof openpossibilityin language),struck us as a necessarynotion in discussingyour workwhen we wereworkingon HandHeard/liminalobjects1995-96), and even beforethatin my 1988 piece("DisturbingUnnarrative f thePerplexed arapraxis:TwinText for Disturbance").ndeedyour attraction o the notion is expressedn youracceptance f thephrase iminalobjectsor thosestrange omputer-generatedbject-entities-folded hands whose fingerspass througheach other,a wheel that rollsthrough he pudding-like ubstance f a bed,etc.They areobjectson the thresholdof being somethingother than objects,"animated"n a sensedeeperand strangerthan the technical.Andbeyondthis we quicklysawthat muchof yourworkoccursin a spacethat is "liminal"o one or severalcategories f art/thought/behavior;orinstance,your work often straddlesa productivelyunsettledspaceor "threshold"(Latin: imen)betweenmediums.HILL: suppose hat n thinkingaboutmyownworkI usethe morevernaculardeaof things that exist "between.""Liminal"had a particularresonancewith thecomputerworksyou mentioned,suggesting n fact manykinds of liminalityandopeningonto importantphilosophicalssues. thinkmyinvolvementwith this kindof issuebeganearlyon with thinkingabout the differencebetweenvideotapeandinstallationworks.Forexample,Around&About 1980), firsta videotape, hen aninstallation, in which a spoken monologue manipulates mages, each syllable

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connectingto a new image.It not only speaksdirectly o the viewerto the point ofseeming to "secondguess"their responses,but also, through this image/voicelinkage,drawsattention o the spaceoutside he monitor.One seesimages"spoken"on and off the screen; he viewer'sposition becomes more and more complex intermsof architecturalndlinguisticspace.STEIN:So thepieceis liminalnot onlybetweenvideoandinstallationbut betweenimageand languageas well. Both theseliminalspacesseem to be developedagainand againin yourwork. It's true for the piece that Georgementioned, WarZone.Relationsbetweenall threeelements-video, installation, ndlanguage-proliferatein a contextin which eachviewer s a performer.n a sense,there s no waythat thepiece can be takenin as a whole; rather he viewer deviseshis/herown itinerarythroughit: whatyou heardepends upon how you approach he various"talking"objects.Whatyouseedependson howyouchooseto operate heopticalequipment,such asthe odd binocularmachinewith one eye seeing nto the room and the othereye viewinganimatedversionsof the objects n the room as seen from the rabbit'spoint of view. These would switch left/right and even sometimes become astereoscopic mageof one or the other. Here the liminality s in the shifts betweenobjectsas animated rreal,betweenobjectsandbrain/eye eception,and betweenallof this andcognition.Even whatyou thinkis happeningdependsdirectlyon yourown actsof attention.HILL:It'sa kind of activatedieldand a field atplay.Objectsannounce hemselves,anda livingrabbit campershrough he spacealreadyitteredwith bothvisual andauditoryrepresentations,nterruptinghe intellectwith pure, mmediate ntuition.The thing about WarZone s that eventhoughthere areinfinitepathsand "takes,"I do see it asdecodableasawholeto a largedegree;but the senseof thepiececomeswith knowledgeslowlydiscoveredas one participatesn it, so that the work cancontribute o one'squestionsboth about it and aboutthe world at large.To a lesserdegreethe installationPrimarily peaking1981-83) functionsalongsimilar ines.Here you have two facingrows of monitorswith images flashingbetweenthem,accompaniedby a textcomposedof ready-made hrases hat arereadout loud on atape broadcastnto the space.The phrasesgo in and out of connectivityto theimages.As differentviewerswalk along the corridorbetween the monitors, theyidentify with the text variouslyregarding ts relationship o the images on themonitorsand to theirownbody.Perhaps ne couldsaythat this was a "performancefor two walls!" once receiveda request or a copy of the text from a man whowanted to give it to his girlfriend-it said"exactly" hat he wanted to sayto her.Ratherstrange,but it gave me confidencethat I was successfulin rechargingidiomatic expression.STEIN:Again,there is no sense in which the presentation f the materialof thepiece is "theatrical": hatevercontent an individual experiencesthere is notsomethingthat is beingexpressedn a simplefashionby "GaryHill,"either as thecreator f thepieceor thespeaker f the verbalaspectof it. It is rathera spontaneous

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WarZone,1980. Mixed mediainstallation.Photo:CourtesyLongBeachMuseumof Art, California.

Incidenceof Catastrophe,987-8. Video:color, stereo,sound,43 minutesand 51 seconds. Photo:CourtesyGaryHill.

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WhyDo ThingsGet n a Muddle?ComeonPetunia),1984. Video:color,32 minutes.Photo:CourtesyDonaldYoungGallery,Seattle,Washington.HandHeard,1995-6. Five-channel ideo installationwith fivecolorprojections;ivevideoprojectors,ive laserdiscplayers, ive channel

synchronizer. hoto:CourtesyBarbaraGladstoneGallery,New York.

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responseof theindividualwhopicks upon aspecific et of possiblecombinations fimage,speech,andrhythmat the moment.QUASHA:And the senseof the wholeof thepiece,as with WarZone, s somethingthatone discoversslowlyas one gainsin experiencewith it.HILL:Maybein performancen its most theatrical enseyou haveto get the storyacross,even if this amounts to nothing more than expressing he characterof aperson.That obviously s not the case with Primarily peakingr WarZone,but ina piece like the videotape WhyDo ThingsGetin a Muddle? ComeOn Petunia)(1984), which does seem to tell a story and to expressthe personalitiesof the"characters,"here'sa quite differentraisond'etre.The whole matterof characterandplot justsort of implodes.The viewer sn'tconcernedabout eithercharacter rplot, but ratherends up plumbin the middle of a processwhereinthe textureofinvolvement tself s the content/information f the work.The viewerbecomespartof the works unfolding.I can evenimaginean audienceidentifyingas a whole andgoingthroughsomethingratherstrange. n anycasethere s no theatricalprojectionfromthe "performers"ut to an intendedaudience.QUASHA:Letme recall he "embeddedstory"of WhyDo ThingsGet n a Muddle?This involvedthe mergingof aspectsof two unrelatedpiecesof writing.One wasa"metalogue"rom the anthropologistGregoryBateson'sStepsTowardsn Ecology fMind. "Metalogues"or Bateson are conversationswhere the structureof whathappens between the interlocutorsrepeatsthe content of the conversation-aninstanceof life imitatingartat the formal evel.STEIN: This kind of thinghappens n conversationmore often than we think.Forinstance,perhaps his "liminalperformance"s itselfa metalogue.HILL:Liminally peaking,maybe.QUASHA:What'sstriking s how dramatic he dialogue s in and of itself.Thatparticularmetalogues a conversation etweenBatesonandhisdaughter.The othertextwasAlice n Wonderland.ateson'smetaloguebecomes he "Alice"dialogue.Atthe beginningof the piece,Chuck[CharlesStein,who "performed"n it during tscreation n Barrytown,NewYork] implyread hepartof Batesonwhileholdingthebook on camera,andKathy[Bourbonais]ead he partof his daughter.But afterafew minutes, things develop strangelywhere Kathyturns into "Alice,"and thelanguage tself undergoesa bizarre ransformation.What is actuallyhappening sthat the characters respeaking heir lines andperformingheir actionsbackwards,but the tapere-reversedhe speechand movementso that everything eems to behappening n the rightdirection,only crazilydistorted.HILL:The performersn factarecompletelyconcentrated n thejob at hand withall theycan muster.The engagementwith these tasksgenerates ll kindsof emotivecontent that hasnothingto do with skillin acting,andwhich for the mostpartare

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unknown o theactorsor evenactually eltbythem.The viewer dentifieswith themas peoplewho aregoingthroughsome kind of strange rip-"through the lookingglass"as it were.STEIN: Certainweirdemphasesoccur both in speechand gesturethat were noteven "unconscious"n the actual"take."NeitherKathy'song, sultrygazes,nor thefrenziedqualityof my impatiencewith her wereactuallypresent n theenergyof theshootingsituation.They seemvery expressive, ut expressions f whatexactly? t isquite peculiar,really. rememberhow while workingon WhyDo ThingsGetin aMuddle? e wereconstantly alkingabout the differentpossibilities f meaningthatwhat we were doing supported.We had the GregoryBateson text, Alice inWonderland,he commitmentto work with talkingbackwards,and just abouteverythingelse was a matterof continuousdiscoveryalong the way.We had anintuitionthatreversinganguage,perhapsn itsviolenceandevenperversity,wouldbe a fruitfulfield for exploration.But it was as if the richnessof the intellectualcontent thatI believethe pieceends up having,was itselfsomethingthatemerged"inprocess,"and not at all somethingthat guidedthe piece as its intention fromwithout.HILL:WhyDo ThingsGet n aMuddle?is goodexampleof how a lot of ideasbeginforme asquestions hat arise rompossibilities loseat handlike one'sown bodyorspeechor thewaya system s patched ogether. hadbegunto think about thepieceafterexperimentingwith talkingbackwardsusing a reversibletape recorder.Thatseemedpossible,but I had nowhereto go with it. In fact, at first it was talkingbackwardstself,withoutre-reversinghe output,that seemedinteresting.The ployof performinghe doublereversalonlycameto mindafterreading he "Metalogues"in the Batesonbook anddecidingto useone of them as a text.And then it turnedout that BatesonmentionsAlice n Wonderlando manytimes thatwhat wasin factanencrustation-turningthe charactern the"metalogue,"ho actuallys Bateson'sdaughter, nto Alice-became natural.Of coursethe "Alice" ooks arefilled withreversals, o there was an enormouslyrich area for the play of analogiesandconcepts,and forworkingwith imageswhose import lay not in their character simagesbut in theirlogicalorpseudo-logicalmplications.Andonce those ideaswerein place, the workbegan, n the RedHook Diner,actually.Yourememberhow everymorningwe'dgo to breakfast nd playthis gamewhereone of us would saya word backwards nd the otherone would have to figureoutwhatit was.We were n factstudyingwhat wasreally nvolved n talkingbackwards,which, as shouldbe obvious, s quitedifferent romjustspellingwords backwards.While we practiced n thisway,I was transcribinghe Batesontext into a kind ofphonological core-writing it out so that we wouldhavea wayto work on talkingbackwards.As a matterof fact, this is the only piece of mine that I can think ofoffhandthat, ironically, ad to be completelyscriptedout; the reversedlanguage/sound hadto be workedout phoneticallyn detail andthen scoredfor the riseandfallof pitches.But, evenso, therewerealwaysunexpectedhappenings.And, asyousay, herewas a continuousdiscussionof thepossibilities f meaningregardingwhat



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we were doing. Basicallymoving and speaking backwards s something likeswimmingupstream.QUASHA:In terms of viewer/audience, would think the projective nstallationRemarks n Color 1994) would have had a similarrelationshipo performancenthe sense that, here again,the qualitiesthe audienceperceives n "thecharacter"performing n the piece arein no way thingsthat the young girl is tryingto getacross.HILL:Absolutely.You see an eight-year-old hild readingWittgenstein's ook ofthat title, strugglingwith pronouncingthe words of a text she can't possiblyunderstand. The piece "frames"her 45-minute action (facing us as a videoprojectionon a wall)as if she'son stage,but she never ooksup;she'sobjectifiedas"thereader." he wholeperformance as a "random"haractern that it'simpossibleto know what she willcomeupwith,andforher it'sjustadifficultandstrange hingto be doing in frontof a camera. t'sa completelyunprecedented ndunrepeatableperformance f the text,analogousn awayto bringingan unsuspecting ersononstagein a theatre vent,so thatthe outcome is justan actualextensionof who theyare in thatcontext.QUASHA:In thiswayit'salsorelated o suchpiecesas Disturbance(amonghejars)(1988) and TallShips 1992), which bring "realpeople"(non-actors/performers)into highlystructuredontexts,asking hemto do something hat is not a matteroftheir expertiseor previously ocused abilities-to performthe unknown,so thatthey reveal something unique to their presencethere. In Tall Shipsthere are"ordinary eople"who seemto walkupto youin thedarkandjuststandandstare-the effectof which is to maketheviewer,paradoxically,eel somewhat"on-stage."nDisturbancevery sophisticatedpeople, such as JacquesDerrida, have to readunfamiliar exts from the GnosticGospels(the Nag Hammadilibrary)-a sort ofadult version of the child reading Wittgenstein.A public meditationwith anunexampled ense of wonder.Indeed,the particularense of liminalperformancehere consists in the apparentfact that Derrida felt free in the context of a"performanceiece" o manifesthimself n an unpremeditated ay.He didn'thaveto "perform"t all;yet he was at once in an excitingway both at hazard n, andprotectedby,the performanceontext.HILL: I think that this is prettymuch the spacethatI often attemptto workin.Many of the single-channelworkswerestructuredn such a way as to allowthatunpremeditatedctivityon my part n producinghem.I'mthinking n particular fworks where I myself appearon camera.I'm not reallyperformingas an actorperforms,but rathertakingpart n anopen system hatI myselfhavedevised.Again,in manyinstancesthey are similar o the performancesn WhyDo ThingsGet in aMuddle?andRemarksn Color ndseveral ther nstallations s well. Forexample, nthe installation CRUX(1983-87) you see five monitors mounted on a wallsuggesting he form of a crucifix.On thescreensaretapesof myself:at the top, myhead;horizontallyo the left andright,my hands;at the bottomclosetogether,my10 * PAJ 58


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feet.The tapesshowme moving strangely hrough he difficultterrainof a ruinedcastleon an island n theHudsonRiver[afew milessouthof theBeacon-NewburghBridgeare heruinsof an abandonedturn-of-the-centuryrmory alledBannerman'sCastle],and,of course, here s thesymbolic uggestionof the crucifiedbody,a kindof Stationsof the Crossand Crucifixionall in one. But the visceralnature of myactivity-walking with camerasattached o my body alongwith the weightof therecorders-breaksthroughthese representations ery quickly.My movement is atbest awkward,and there is a distinct sense of separation rom the environmentaroundme. I'm"nailed,"s it were,to a continuously hanginggroundandskybythe cameras,which havefixed frames ocused on my extremities.What is actuallyhappening s that I'mjusttrying o make t frompointA to point B withoutfallingdown, and all the nuances, acialcontortions,and distortionsof scale between thebody and the environmentsimplyoccurgiven the "happenstance"f the pathsItake.The relationshipo performance, t least in the waywe arespeakingabout it now,shiftsin an interestingwaywith a work likeIn Situ(1986). Rather hansettingupa frame/context n which I or someoneelse goes througha process,each viewerwalks into a system performance: singlemonitorturnson and off revealing hecollapseof the raster; lectric ansin all four cornersof the roomalsogo on and offstirringup the air,into whichprintedcopiesof imagesfromthe screenareejecteddown from the ceiling on and around a chair.This chairobviously occupies theviewingposition.It has a shrunkencushiondoublingthe "shrunken"athoderaytube that looks to be fallingfrom its larger rame.The work physicallypresentsruptures between public media and private space-my first encounter withBlanchot'sThomas he Obscure. his was the precursoro Incidenceof Catastrophe(1987-88).STEIN: Mostrecently,n Viewer1996), performancen asensefaces tself: heday-workersperform heir own being byjust standing n frontof the camera, tanding,thatis, projected, n thegallerywall. Performances reduced o the rawelement ofbarehumanpresence n the partof the "performers"ndbarepresenceof attentionon the partof ourselvesas "viewers." he viewersperformhe act of viewing.Theperformersuststandand view.QUASHA:How is thisrawsenseof viewinginformative f "video,"which is, afterall, Latinfor"Isee"?HILL:Well, I'vealwaysdownplayedhe etymological ootof theword "video" ndits direct connectionliterallywith seeing,becauseof the emphasison image.I'veevengoneso faras to attack"video" sultimately hewrongword forwhatI, at anyrate,thinkI'minvolvedwith. Forme, this would hold true for the meaningof thetitleof Vieweroo, eventhoughof course t does drawuponthe site of seeing.It alldependson how much"Isee"can be extendedontologically.

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QUASHA: Often "tosee"does have a broadontological extension. We say "Isee" tomean the mind's recognition, and of course the root of the Latin word itself isrelated to "wisdom,""wit,"and "vision" n all its senses.There is also the connectionwith the Greek root of "idea"(idein) and the close connection between seeing andthinking in Greek thought. Visual sensation, visualization, thinking as envisioning,and insight, both psychological and spiritual, arepotentially alive in the root senseof"video," so perhapswe can say that "videoart"-particularly a video art that doesnot focus primarily on asserting images-restores the root meaning to the word."Video art"as opposed to video as television, say, protects and recoverspossibility.Certainly our choice of "Viewer"for your piece and for our book (Viewer: GaryHill's ProjectiveInstallations-Number 3) was meant to do just that, by making thetitle "performative" f the reflexivityin the viewing situation and the liminal state ofany image/object so consciously engaged.HILL: Yes, and getting further into the roots through titling the work Site Recite(1989) I discovered an interesting etymological twist where "cite" n its relationshipto "read aloud" and to "instigate"(e.g., "incite") goes back to something like to"make move" and eventually connects to the Greek (kinesis) which generates"cinematograph."In other words, speaking is directly connected to moving images.This is only a syllablewithin what turns out to be avery complex title, and titles thatcome the closest to distilling works into words have alwaysbeen important to me, asyou are well aware, having collaborated on several of mine-for instance, TaleEnclosure,Hand Heard, iminalobjects,Viewer,StandingApart,FacingFaces,andindirectly (the parentheticalpart of) LearningCurve(Still Point).QUASHA: Over the years, however, we havenoticed a certain impatience on yourpart as regardsthe distinction "video artist,"which still tends to follow your name.Certainly there was a tactical advantageto using that term in the late 70s and early80s when we were applying for grants at Open Studio in Rhinebeck andBarrytown-video was young and exciting and very fundable. But you came fromsculpture, were attracted to sound, and very soon to language as medium, no doubtfurthered by your interaction with poets, and then moved toward performance.Certainly, it was true of the early experiments with video synthesis in Woodstock,where you were collaborating with Walter Wright and were doing mixed-mediaperformances under the name Synergism, and later working with the electronicdesigner David Jones in Barrytown. All of this was inherently performative andquickly led into our actual intermedia performancesat the Arnolfini Arts Center inRhinebeck.HILL: I'm definitely not comfortable with the tag of "video artist." Once again, itforegrounds a passivesense of image.Virtually all my work in one way or anotherhas something to do with putting into question the hierarchical position of theimage. For me, working in video involves a thinkingspacethat is part of the milieuof working with electronic media. It includes feedback processes, cybernetics, andvarious I/Os from and to the world, all on an equal footing with the aspect of thework that has to do with recordingand processingvisual images. So the term "video

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art," even for my work that is technicallysingle-channelvideo, can be verymisleading.Also,keep n mind that the artworld idn't o to speakdiscover ideoartuntilDocumenta9 (1992). I think a lot of this comes out of habitandlazinessbutaboveall economics.QUASHA:Okay.Let'sreturnfor a minute to an installationpiece that goes farbeyondthe category"video" nd into root issuesof language,which to extend theactivegroundof the creative unction of language might call metapoetic,amely,Disturbance.The poets-like BernardHeidseick,performanceart master(poesiesonore)-for obviousreasonsreadily cceptedour invitation o readGnosticGospelsin front of the camera. It's interesting to speculate about why Derrida-aphilosopherwith no apparentonnection o ancienthereticalreligious exts-wouldbe willing to participate-to perform(does he "act"?).We mentioned the self-protectiveness f the artcontext,even when it is revealingn an uncomfortable rinconvenientway.Yoursense of performance s sculpturally utonomousand notaddressedo an audience s, I think,connected o issuesthatDerridadealswith inthe processof his writingand that make it ratherexcitingeven when one doesn'tparticularly agree" ith him-writing asperformance.'vehad the fantasy hat hesawthe connectionbetween hisopportunity o performand his mode of "writing/thinking"-a stageon which he couldbe "meditativelyeretical" ven to himself.There are severalfairly recent texts of Derridathat are actuallylectures-I'mthinking of Of Spirit:Heidegger nd the Question 1987), for instance,whichinterestingly ates it around he time of Disturbance. hat is, the lectures/texts rewriting-performances,ddressed o a certainaudienceat a certain ime on a certainissuewith a certainbackground, et theyaredrivenby an internal extualdynamic.A book publishing uchlanguage-eventss verymuch like an installation.Perhapsthis liminalperformance/installationuality s present n the thinkers hatyou areattracted o-Blanchot even more than Derrida-who seem to work in a waysomehowrelated o howyou areworking.How do you seethis connectionbetweenperformance ndwriting?HILL:One mightthink thatperformance,venwithin the context of various elf-conscious delimitations,would be closer to Derrida's deas on grammatology,whereasediting, workingwith "post-performance"ecordedmaterial,might becloserto the spaceof writingwhich,by its nature,givesdistanceand mediation.Inone sensethe makingof Disturbance asa two-partordeal: he performanceventsand the editing/writingevents. And the complexityof the relationshipbetweenthesetwo stagesof compositioncouldbe thoughtaboutin termsof the complexityof the relationship n Derrida'sthought betweenspeakingand writing. (Derridathinksthatspeaking-performings already kind ofwriting.)Orperhaps,f weopenup performance s we've been speakingabout it, by structuringt throughothermedia,otherquestions uchas "What s performanceime?" ome into play,as wellas alltheontological ssues hat swirlaround heveryquestionswe areasking-thenwe might beginto see performancewithin the domain of writing.



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Remarks n Color,1994. Single-channel ideoinstallation; rojector,aserdiscplayer,amplifier,oudspeaker. hoto:CourtesyDonaldYoungGallery,Seattle,Washington.

DISTURBANCE(among hejars), 1988. Seven-channel ideo installation.Photo:CourtesyDonaldYoungGallery,Seattle,Washington.

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As you know,George,sinceyou werethereas collaborator,he production ime ofDisturbance as shortindeed-about twoweeks.And althoughwe workedhardonthe textualbase,we didn'tproducea script.I had some drawingsand structuralnotesforthe initialpieceI hadplanned(calledVanishingoints)which at leastgavean inkling of the imagesmoving througha sequenceof monitors.This was notmuch to go on, giventhe level of poetsandperformers rriving t our doorstep na steadystream. So variouson-the-spotdecisionsby us and the performers likebecamevery important, ince in retrospecthe collectedrecorded"events" ouldinsome sense become almost "found objects,"perhapssomething like the NagHammadimanuscriptshemselves whichwere found preservedn ancientjars).Isupposea completelydifferent inaltextcould be made fromthe same rawmaterial.Longbefore his,I had similarnotionsaboutPrimarily peaking-that acompletelydifferent et of imagescould beplugged ntothetext,thoughnotjustany mages.Soouron-the-spotdecisionsbecamevery mportant-decisionsaboutthe framingandthe movementof the performers ecamedecidingfactors n structuringhe work.Basically had to workwith what I hadaftereverythinghad beenrecorded.Duringthe taping, we tried to capturesomething from each individualperformancewithoutthinkingabouthoweverythingwouldbewoventogether n the end.So theimprovisationalnergyalongwith the inspiration hat thoseheretical extsseemedto engender n the writersproducedvery powerfulresults.Giventhat we rarelydidmore than a singletake,it wasremarkable.More than with the otherperformingwriters, he pressurewas on when Derridacame. It was anon-the-spotdecision o havehimwalk backand forthfull-bodiedallthe way throughthe frameeach time.The fact that this made it possible, ater nediting,to havehim continuethrough hespaceof multiplemonitorsdeterminedmajor hreadof the piece. (The illusionof hiswalkingcontinuously romscreen oscreenacross everalmonitors n a rowinvolvedreversinghe imageeachtime.)Ona subtler evel,sincehe held the text in one hand,every ime hewalkedthroughandappeared n anothermonitor, he textwould otherwisehavechangedhandsdue tothe image'shavingbecomereversed. hisplayedright nto theissuesof left andrightthatappear hroughout he workandbecameone of the major actors n buildingthe fundamental structure of the piece. In the end, the monitors became afragmented entencethat he wasweaving hrough.But it alsomade sensein termsof the simpleact of walking,thinking,and pacing.There'san interesting onnec-tion, which I believeyou expressedat the time, to Heidegger'sConversationn aCountryPath,at leastas image.STEIN: This sense of languageas a kind of walking-the sense that the bodyactivateslanguage-becomes literallythe case in Withershins1995), where theparticipantwandersthrougha labyrinthaid out on the groundof the installationand eachstepactivatesa phrase hatis broadcastthrough he spaceof thework,sothat a text is generated ythe act of walking.The labyrinthbecomesa kind of brain,and one becomes,as it were,one's own homunculus,walking nsidethe foldsandpassagewaysf one'sown cranium.Or again, anguage tselfbecomesa brain....

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We have been talkingabout performancen a number of differentsenses, andperhapshis is themomentto callattention o a meaningof theword"performative"that we haveused in discussingyourworkelsewhere.We borrow he philosopherJ.L.Austin'suse of this termforutteranceshatliterally erformheactionof whichthey speak: promise, wish,I accuse,I name,etc.-actions accomplishedn theirverysaying.Suchverbalactionsclosethe gapbetweenword and meaning,but canonly do their work withinthe specificcontextsthat call themforth...QUASHA:Performativelanguage s always ite/occasion-specific-it happenshereandnow.STEIN: In some sense, each artistic gesture, each decision or choice, is aperformativect,calling ntobeing,or allowing o emerge nto being,theparticularartisticvaluewith which it is concerned.HILL:Ultimatelyeveryword andeverymoment in a tape(or life for thatmatter)could be performative lmost in and of itself in that sense.I think of La MonteYoung's aying,"tuning s a function of time." Each event enters nto an evolvingrelationshipwith thedevelopingpiece,spiraling roundandfolding n so that atanymomentyou might "begin" gainfrom a differentplace.I mean evenrepeatinganimage or a sequencecan be part of a continuousevent; in workingon a piece,relisteningo a sequence oldsa pastevent back nto thepresent.Onejusthas to bepatient,believingsomethingwill emerge.But what is it that is the source of thisemergencewhen it doeshappen?thappensn "thepresent" ut thepresenthas nowgained a complexitythat quite literallyincludes the replayedpast. This reallycomplicates he questionof "real ime."QUASHA:Everything merges n the present,but the present s the occasion of a"performance"hat includes he replayof real-timetapedsequences apturedn thepast.Your"everyword is performative"xpresses he condition of poetry-eachwordaccomplishests meaning mmediatelyandconcretely. n this sensepoetryisnot the specialcase of languagebut the emergence-the eruption-of its deepestnature.We watchedyour alreadyactive awareness f languagepossibilitiesgrowthroughyour relations o poets in the late 70s. YourtapeHappenstance1982-3)with its literal"spiralingroundandfoldingin" of language,asyou say, s as freshtodayas the firstdayI saw t, as t wasbeingmade, n Barrytown. orme it belongedto thehistoryof whatI hadalreadyongbeencalling-thinking of Blake'snon-lyricworks-"poetic torsion."And franklyHappenstanceas likea read-outof a partofmyownbrain,because t proved omething fantasizedwastrue,thatin thedeepestsenseapoemis an animate orce hatis active n all of themind'sprojections, isual/aural/tactile.Blake nventeda high-tensionopen interaction f text and imagethatrenderedboth "mind-degradable."appenstancearries hat process nto territoryBlake would haveloved. Yoursense of textuality ets the viewer-readernsidetheexperience f reading, ecognizinghat alertactsof reading reactuallyperformative:the worldor content of the text is performed n the mind of the reader, r bythemind of the reader,as reading akesplace.But reading s also a bodily act and a



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bodily performance,and a book is also a physicaloccasion, and its physicalpropertiescan becomepartof the readingperformancetself.I think this is verymuch the senseof thingsthatyouevoke n Incidenceof Catastrophe1987-8), which"takesplace" nside the act of readinga textby Blanchot,Thomas heObscure.HILL:When I readthatwork,it wasas if the edgesof the bookceased o exist orthat the book took on enormousproportions.STEIN: As of course t does foryou at the end of your tape.HILL: n Thomashe differentiation f thespaceof the book fromthat of theauthorand of the readercollapses,and this createsa state of incrediblevertigo; yourpositionis constantlybeing challengedn termsof whereyou fit into the narrativeas a reader.All you can do is hold the book,feel the pages,seethe words as purethings being there,generatinga cocoon aroundyou. That experienceof readingitselfbelongs o themain charactern thebook,but it also is forcedupon you asyouread t. It'sone of themosthallucinatory ooksI'veeverread,notjustin the imagesit createsbut in the play of that space.That aspectof the book reallyrattlesme,actually.QUASHA:There's sensethatevery ime one comes to it, it's ike a newtext-youforgetwhatyou'veread.Blanchot s the mostcontinuouslyorgettable nforgettablewriterI know!(ExceptmaybeBlake!)STEIN: I rememberrereadingThomas heObscure fewyearsafterexperiencingtthe firsttime. I returned o the text withverysharpmemoriesof certain cenesandcertainpassages;but when I had readit through,those scenes had completelyvanished-they just weren'tthere.There was, this time, a completelydifferentdistributionof imagesand events-it wasquitestartling.HILL: The last time I read the book-quite recently,actually-I had a similarexperience-even aftermy close and intense use of it in Incidenceof Catastrophe.QUASHA:What you capture n that workby emphasizing he physicalityof thebook-the textures f its pages, he soundsof turning hem,the resonance etweenthose soundsand the sounds of the surf-is not just an imaginative xtrapolationfrom thesubjectmatterof thebook,but a directportrayal rprojection f thebookitself-of thataspectof it that is always ight n yourface,that meansto grabholdof you and demonstratesomethingof the terrorand mysteryof the ontologyofreading. ncidenceof Catastrophes as muchanintensivecommentary n ThomasheObscure s it is a workof art informedby it-a work of art thatperformshe act ofreadinganother.HILL:The impulseto put myself n the placeof the protagonistwasto make thathappen-because otherwise would havejustbeenoutside,tryingto tellyou what

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reading hatbook waslike.But like I say, hat bookreallyrattledme, andthewholepoint of Catastropheas to dealwith thatexperience.STEIN:Yet,once again,that tapewas not put togetherby followinga theatricalscenario.HILL:Certainlynot. I neverreallyactedin it, perse, as I mentionedbefore.Mostof the scenesweretableau-like.Wewould set themup andjustperform.Manytimeswejustleft the camera n, recordingwellpastthetime limitwehadinitiallydecidedupon. Generally peaking, hatwas when interesting hingswould startto happen.I thinkthatextending herecordingimeturnedout to be keyto actuallyprojectingthe experienceof reading-the connectionbetweenreal time and readingtime.Thereareportionsof Catastropheherethescenesarepurposefully longated. agesof the book are seen for extendedperiodsof time, considerablyongerthan merespectator ime. Yetthesesequencesneedto be thereto submerge heviewer nto thetimeofreading-an actualreading imethat'sparenthesizedn thework-there hadto be someactualevent of reading:imespentsittingwith the book,beingwith thebook.QUASHA:There's ealtime, performanceime, and readingime-HILL:It'sinteresting o think in thisrespectabout Noh drama:how in the theoryof Noh therearedifferentkindsof times:splittime,reverseime andothers.I thinkthere are fouror fivedifferentiatedconceptsof time.QUASHA:Perhaps here is somethingthat we could call "deeptime" that runsunderneath hem all andmakes hempossible-a time that'salways hereand thatyou know you can count on; it doesn'thaveany structure n itself, but it allowswhatever ime structure s necessaryo becomeavailable.HILL:It'szerotime-as something ike the stillpoint.In surfing I just had to getthis in) this could be describedas the moment in which the surfer inds a positionin the "green oom" insidethecurl of thewave).And thatcurving/breakingine isso steadilyevolvingthat it appears o be still. Consequently, he surfer s in theperfectposition"infinitely." thinkwhenone is in the creativeact, the desire s tofind andstaywith thiskind of stillpointaslongaspossible.But it is theunavoidablebreaks romit that allowthe stillpoint to reveal tself outsidetself.Paradoxicallytneeds disturbanceof some kind to exist so as to be what it is: the consummatetuning fork.QUASHA:"At the still point of the turningworld. Neither flesh nor fleshless;Neither fromnot towards; t the stillpoint, there the danceis, / But neitherarrestnormovement. . ."T.S.Eliot (TheFourQuartets: urntNorton,PartII). So directexperience f the stillpoint-whether in anactivity ikesurfing,or in a "non-action"activity ike taichi chuanorcertaintypesof bodywork in theosteopathicoffshoot,craniosacraltherapy,"stillpoint"is a technicalterm for deep and transformative

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suspensionof rhythmicity),or in the processof working in a specific artisticmediumorbetweenmediums,or in theactualon-goingactivityof transforminghematerialwith whichone isworking-the stillpointwould bethatpoiseof mindandhand, mind and body,whereawareness nd activitycick in and the workis reallyunderway.And thisstill-pointexperiencessimultaneouslyheaccess o deep ime-to theverytime thatengulfsandsurrounds ndunderplaysndnourishesand istheveryheart of the processand the activity tself.STEIN: The deep issuebehindprocess, hen, behind the creativepotentialitiesofrealtime, aswell asbehind the complex oldingof timeuponitself,behind the self-referentialaspectsof the "performative"-is hisdeep ime as the strange ourceorwellspringof what is trulycreative n the work.This remindsme of thatincredibleimageof themaskrisingabruptlyo thesurface f the water n UraAru(1985-6)-as if therewere a certain rustexpressedn thismoment,that the image, n thiscasethemask,has beentrusted o arise, o return romthedepths-that you don'talwayshave to planout beforehand heeffectsyou areafter,butthat there s a fundamentaltrust n thisdeeptimeitselfthatyou have o acknowledge, ndin acknowledging,nacertain enseprepareor-but that alltheplanning, hecontriving, hestructuringis only to createoccasionswherea certainemergence anbe allowed o happen; hatgiventhe rightkind of permission,or solicited n the rightmanner,deeptime willdeliverwhat is needed;andI thinkthat thisis true in a greatvarietyof ways n yourwork. I would say that it is what is most profoundevenwhere the issueseemstoinvolve the relationshipbetween languageand image, and preciselywhere theordinaryunderstanding f those relationships remost challenged; hat these areoccasionsstrategically ontrivedso that new speciesof eventsof meaning mightemerge romdeeptime-the time in whichthe work sbeinggeneratedbut alsothetime in which the work is being viewed.For since the image/event tself is notcontrivedbut solicited, hemoment of creationand themoment of viewingarethesame.HILL:In termsof the maskI hope you arespeaking iguratively ecause he realityof the situationwasthus:Throwing he mask n a smallpond,hopingthat it would"arrange"tselfjustso, and at thatmoment,usingthe end of an old broomstick opushthe maskdownthrough hewateruntil it was all but invisible; henrecordingit as it surfaced n hope thatit did it in "just he rightway." f not, do it again ..and again. Certainly couldn'tplan how the maskwould arise n terms of all thenuances nor could I hangout by the local swimminghole waitingfor an otafikuJapanesemaskto suddenlycome fromthe deeps!So in this sense the actualeventthat I wanted was thought out, knowingfull well that not everythingcould becontrolled(bya longshot).Also,if onewereto imagineaJapanese ersonwatchingthis activity, t wouldpractically e a formof sacrilege!QUASHA:"A ine will takeus hoursmaybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment'sthought, / Our stitchingand unstitchinghasbeennaught."-W.B. Yeats "Adam'sCurse.")

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STEIN:Indeed.My point wasjust that the meaningof the image'sarising, n thecontextof ourdiscussion, eemscapableof such a reading.... In the 70s, therewasa lot of talk among poets-and I mean the poets in our scene-George, myself,RobertKelly,anda few others-to valorize he "processual"verthe "procedural"nwork-and what we meantwas that the life of theworkcame fromthe actualdoingof it-that you felt yourway alongtoward he emergingpoem;you didn'tthink itupbeforehand ndworkout aprocedurehatwouldguaranteehevalueof the workno matterwhat it turnedout to be. Even"process" asn't alued as a concept,as ifanything at all could be justified because it illustrated"process" s such. Buteverything mportantcame in the applicationof actual attention-it requiredacontinuousalertness o the emergingpossibilitieswith a view to realizing hem,working hemout, findingout whattheywouldyield;andthat thishappened n theactual processof working.The work was not an exampleof its concept, butsomethingthat issued,that was projected, n the processof doing it. In thatway,everypoemwas animprovisation, performance-not becauset wasimpromptuorevenbecause t happened"live,"but because he life of the activityof producing twaswhat madepossiblewhatever italqualities he work itselfmight show.QUASHA:Perhapswe could createa usefuldistinctionbetween"real ime" and"actual ime." Real time, following computerscience, is "the time in which aphysicalprocessundercomputer study or control occurs"; o in video one doessomething like supposea "camera ime" that operateswithin literal clock time.Actualtime,on the otherhand,mayor maynot followliteralclock time-becauseit'sinterruptiblewithoutloss of deeplylinked intensities.Here the issue is presenttime n thesenseof beingpresentn time-what happenswiththespecial ntensityofthe emergentandcreatively nfoldingcompositionrocesstself It stands n relationto the temporal/auditorys concretenessndparticularityo in relation o thespatial/visual.This actual-time istinction-or, paradoxically,oncreteime-may drawoutwhat was of interest o you in the "processual"nd why you chose to applyit tovideo-e.g., Processual ideo 1980)-much in the sense we hadhad been using itfor in poeticsin the 70s.HILL:Whateverlanguage used n theearly70s-and I'msure"process" asclearlycentralto it-I think it wasverymuch alongthe lines of your descriptionof theprocessual.Thereis a certaindifference, hough,betweenthe processualn writingandthewayI wastaking t in video.Except or hardcoreconceptualart andperhapswhatbecameknown as"process rt,"which asyou saywas aboutprocedure,all thework I'vedone,with a fewexceptions, romsculpture o soundand video emergedin timemuchin thewayyou speakabout t. OnceI becameawareof yourscene andawarealso of the term "processual"s you were using it, I took it as a way todelineatea workingspace/time o yieldsomethingbetweenan emphasison processandon concept.YetI'mwondering f whatI hearasa certainmodulateddifferencehas to do with how thevariousmediums-writing andvideo, say-are differentlyinformedby the sameprincipleof emergence.



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I thinkHeidegger's otionof technes importanthereassuggestinghatanyspecifictechnologycan be transformedn its own specificway by its use in artisticwork.There is a techne f harnessing lectronicmedia,and in particularhe complexitiesof multipleoverlapping ystemsand feedback ituations, hat is quitedistinctandoffers, at times, specificopportunities or dealingwith the issuesand ideologiessurroundingechnologyassuch.Andthese ssues,howevermuchtheyareconstantlyfluctuating orme, mayattimesenterthefold of awork.Thatsaid,thecrucialpointis how to remain in time in relationto the techne-the transformation f themediumandtheworking hroughof its work-specificmplications.Therearetypesof feedback hatareexperiencedn electronicmediathatdon'tcomeup in writing.Certainly hedifferences etweenwritingon a computer, n a typewriter rbyhandenters nto the discussion,but I thinkwhat we aresearchingorhere is somethingthatoccurs on a deeper evel.

STEIN: So foryou the crucial ssue is the possibilities f feedback hat electronicmediaoffer.HILL:I thinkso. And how theydiffer,not only fromwriting,but otherfeedbacksituations. feelthatfeedbackphenomena eallydominate hewholeissue of video.Actually, his seemsmoreimportant han,say,the factthata tapeis made in "realtime"assuch,eventhough,of course, eedback ccursthroughreal-timeprocess.Sothe deep time/actualtime distinction from "realtime" is interesting.But theimportantresult s the feedback; eedback s what gives you somethingdifferentfrom the moreordinarywaysof workingwith a medium.The feedback ituationthat ariseswhen you areworkingwith videotapecan involve a certaincognitiveelement-an implicationof abstractthinkingthat hasnothingto do with, say,thewayyourhandsworksomematerial,hatis, theordinary enseof feedback hathasto do with craft.If you focusa video cameraon yourself-there you are,outsideyourself.QUASHA:As in StandingApart/Facingaces 1996).HILL:Right.But it is evenmorethanthat.I wasthinkingabout thiswhiledrivingtoday.A car is alwaysused as a good exampleof cybernetic eedback-the mostprosaicnotion of it. You'redrivinga car.Youreyessee theroad.Youturnthewheel.The car turns.Now the roadappears o turn becauseyou have turned.There'sacontinuous loop. Feedback.But in the kind of space that arises in the videosituation,you findyourself orced ntoaninvolvementwithmoreabstractdeas hatarisequitenaturallyn relation o the simplefacts-ideas aboutidentity, he natureof inner and outer, the relationbetween image and actuality, he meaning ofpresence, he role of information r realtimeand so forth.And theseideas arepartof yourimmediate,ongoing negotiationwith what is actuallyhappening,not at allat an academicor "philosophical"evel,but partof the difficultyof simplyexistingin the situation hatyou haveconjuredup throughelectronicmedia.And onceyoufind yourself nvolved n this, very unusualspacesopen-spaces that can seem tohold the promiseof realinsightinto theseverydifficult ssues.

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STEIN: Of course if you claim that this is happening, it all becomes quitequestionable-people can say that referringto those issues is a kind of pretension,particularlyif they don't enter into that kind of experience.HILL: Exactly.And at this point it reallybecomes a matter of belief or faith. There'snothing that'sgoing to provethat you areon any said "level."You do know, say,thatyou're in a feedback process-there's a camera on you; there's a monitor in front ofyou and you're looking at it. But once you enter into what we could call "meta-feedback,"the space that opens up when you aresimultaneously in your own bodylooking out and out there on a monitor or projected onto a wall being looked at-you have to make a leap-you have to commit yourself to the connection, to the factthatyou believethat there's kindof feedback hat comes from this total situationthat is beyondthe mechanical, irst-ordereedbackof the cameraand the monitor.I think thatthe interest n this marksa difference etweenmywork and that of a lotof other artistswho use video feedback n one wayor another.STEIN:This shows up, I would say very powerfully,n workslike TallShipsorViewer r HandHeard-George andI have dealtwith this question extensivelynour series of books about those works.The experienceof TallShips,say,has thepossibilityof initiatinga state wheresomething ike the "commonmind"of thepiece manifests-where the participant nters nto whatyou arecallingthe meta-feedbackspaceof a collectiveparticipationn an inquiry.QUASHA:Aren'twe alsodealingherewithsomethingverycloseto biofeedback ndpsycho-feedback?Biofeedback in some respects is the best model for discussing awholerangeof processes umanbeingsare nvolvedwith-even the crude nstanceof biofeedbackwhereyou putanelectrode n yourhead and watcha gauge hat tellsyou when you'reagitated.The feedback ituationallowsyou to reflectupon yourown productive nergy-what you areproducingn thewayof energywaves,mindwaves,which existalongsome kind of aspectrum f electronicimpulses.One of thethingsthat has alwaysbeen attractive bout video feedback s the strangewaythatvideo seemsto engage he mind's enseof itself as if therewerea resonancebetweenthe bio-electricityof the nervoussystem and the emission of electronsby thecathode-ray tube-a sense, obviously, that film doesn't excite. I don't know that Ihave any satisfactory notion of what it means, but it does seem to relate to thebiofeedbackthat occurs in doing hands-on bodywork,for instance,or touch-orientedmovement ike ContactImprovisation r tai-chipush-hands.Perhapsweneed a notion like "biointerfeed" o suggest that the feedback-the engaged"listening/signaling"-is going both ways, as it obviously is in many performancesituations where the performer is modulating behavior according to audienceresponse.HILL:I think the realdifferencebetween he kindof feedback hatoccurs n videoand bodyworkor biofeedback,on the one hand, and film, on the other, is thatneitherbiofeedback or video is essentially ictorialThe end result s not an image,even if it involves images, in a sense, along the way. One is not engaged in setting up



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a scenario to represent something through an image. The outcome, the output, ismore a blueprint after thefact of what occurred in the feedback situation. That's nottrue of all my work, but take pieces like Dervish (1993-5) or Between 1 e&0(1993)or anything where the image is really agitated-the whole thing has to do withkeeping you in an agitated state, to force you to remain or become aware of theprocess of seeing and looking and being in a certain place and becoming engaged inwhat it means.QUASHA: An excited feedback situation.HILL: An excited feedback situation.QUASHA: It moves somewhat close to a "flicker"effect at certain times. It engagesyou at a neurological level. Certainlyyou get that in Dervish: a strange, neurological,even trippyquality.HILL: Circular Breathing(1994), too-a continuous pulsation at the same rate.And what's interesting-and this is something I want to pursue more-is, like yousay, this kind of trippyneurological hing which is embedded with some notion ofnarrativeor of there being something underneath.In other words, it's not solely amechanical or biochemical effect, but an opening up of another view on what astory is, what a narrativeis, what images are, and what do images mean when theyare next to each other flickering at such and such a rate.QUASHA: The great forbidden subject-how this all works in with actualtransformation, actual states of mind, the work as initiation into our "furthernature,"to use Charles Olson's projectiveterm. But here we are on the threshold ofanother dialogue, one that leads us into the further lifeof all our genuine work. "I'mso foolish," Olson also wrote, "asong is heat!"SelectedBibliographyof Texts Relatedto the DialogueCyberneticsf theSacred,PaulRyan,Anchor/DoubledayGardenCity,New York:1974).Glass Onion:Noteson the FeedbackHorizon, ext by GeorgeQuasha,StationHill Press

(Barrytown,New York:1980).Gary Hill: DISTURBANCE(amongthe jars), texts by George Quasha ("DisturbingUnnarrative f the PerplexedParapraxisATwin Text for DISTURBANCE]"), renchandEnglish,andJean-PaulFargier"MagieBlanche"),Frenchonly,exhibitioncataloguefor the Museed'ArtModerne,Villeneuved'Ascq:1988.Passagese 'l'mage,ncludinga text on GaryHill byJacquesDerrida "Videor")n a groupshowcatalogueor theMuseeNationald'ArtModerne,CentreGeorgesPompidou,Paris:1990. Also availablen Englishin the exhibitioncatalogueof the same name for theCentre Culturalde la FundacioCaizade Pensions,Barcelona: 991.GaryHill joint catalogue or solo exhibitionsat StedelijkMuseumAmsterdam,August28-October 10, 1993, and KunsthalleWien, November17, 1993-January , 1994.GaryHill: SitesRecited,60-minute videotape,directedand edited for the Long BeachMuseumof Art by CaroleAnn Klonarides,MediaArts Curator,n collaborationwith

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GaryHill, GeorgeQuasha,and CharlesStein (in performance nd on-sitedialogue),ascatalogue or the exhibitionGaryHill: SitesRecited t the Long BeachMuseum of Art(December3, 1993-February 0, 1994). Includesprintedcataloguewith textsby CaroleAnn Klonarides, tevenKolpan,GeorgeQuasha,andRaymondBellour.GaryHill: Spinning he Spurof the Moment[a retrospective ollection of single-channel

videotapes n three aserdisc olumes, ncludingtextsby MichaelNash, GeorgeQuasha(with CharlesStein), Lynne Cooke, and Bruce Ferguson],Irvington:The VoyagerCompany,a joint ventureof JanusFilmsandVoyagerPress:1994.GaryHill catalogue or solo exhibitionat the HenryArt Gallery,Seattle:1994.Cut to the Radicalof Orientation: winNoteson being n touch n GaryHills (Videosomatic)Installation,Cut Pipe, George Quasha,and CharlesStein, in Public 13, "Touchin

ContemporaryArt,"Toronto:PublicAccess:1996.HandHeard/LiminalObjects,GaryHills Projectivenstallations-Number , GeorgeQuashaand CharlesStein.GalerieDesArchives Paris,France) ndStationHillArts/Barrytown,

Ltd. (Barrytown,New York):1996.TallShips:GaryHills Projectivenstallations-Number, GeorgeQuashaand CharlesStein.Barrytown: tation Hill Arts/Barrytown, td.:1997.Viewer:GaryHill'sProjectivenstallations-Number , GeorgeQuashaand CharlesStein.Barrytown: tation Hill Arts/Barrytown, td.:1997.GaryHill: MidnightCrossing,xhibitioncatalogue orWestfalischerKunstvereinMunster,1997. Includes:HeinzLiesbrock,Loss lluminates,"ndRobertMittenthal,"PresubjectiveAgency:OutsideIdentity."

PAJ,NO. 58 (1998) PP. 1-25: ? 1998The Johns Hopkins University Press

Liminal Performance

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