Jill Magid - Authority to remove

I saw this exhibition back in mid September. At the time (even though I enjoyed it) I didn’t see the relevance to my practice now I feel stupid that I didn’t. The exhibition consists of documentation of Magids long involvement with the AIVD in which she was commissioned to make work for there head quarters. Throughout this time Magid uses the institutions rules to such an extent that they become absurd. She follows rules to the extent that they no longer make sense or follows them in order to break them/ twist them for self gain. (You now clearly see the stupidity in my thinking)

The storytelling aspect to this work is what grabs me the most in terms of documentation of a live act. The work tells a story of what happened during the time spent there but due to the regulations could not be done in certain ways. The beauty of this way of documentation to me is the idiosyncratic way in which an audience is asked to interpret it. Within live art the ephemeral nature of it makes it important to actually be an audience member as you will never yet the same experience again either though re-enactment or documentation. The storytelling way of documenting for me reproduces another idiosyncratic experience.

Where as photo documentation remains static storytelling has a way of moving within out minds creating yet another idiosyncratic experience. One could argue that video is a better way of documentation of live art which on the whole I agree with, however in terms of durational work I feel differently. I feel the need to stick with something for a prolonged period of time or indeed get the gist of process that develops with time gets lost within a video documentation format. This in my opinion is addressed in within Magids work within it text based nature which tells the story of the experience or process more adequately than other documentation might have.