Visitor One Thru Eight

performance lecture by Andrea Liu

@ Zürich University of the Arts, Toni-Areal, Viaduktraum 2.A05, Ebene 2, Pfingstweidstrasse 96, Zürich 

Barthes 1967 essay “The Death of the Author” rejects the monolithic pre-fabricated authority of the author as the sole determinant of meaning the text and hails the “birth of the reader”—the multifarious positions of the reader that comprise the true producers of meaning.

In any given performance, there is a vast reserve of untapped resources: the audience. “Visitor One thru Eight” is a performance where I inhabit the role of 8  spectators who have come to my performance.  Visitor One wants to be integrated into the grand narrative of appreciating art. Visitor Two believes in the mystery and the unknowability of art. Visitor Three believes in the emancipatory potential of extreme experiences. Visitor Four yearns for linear and emotional storytelling. Visitor Five believes art should be something direct and visceral, an intimate offering amongst friends. Each Visitor is a hypothetical speculation on an audience member.

I incorporate the opinions, desires, & expectations of the audience as the content of my performance. The audience is a crystal through which various desires, ideologies, assumptions backgrounds, biases are refracted, projected, frustrated, appeased, challenged or fulfilled.  Visitor One Thru Eight inhabits various modes of performance in order to unpack what are the conditions and ideologies that underlie spectatorship.”