Where does documentary practice get radical?
Probably not in the well-meaning discourses of earnest, yet deeply entrenched, traditional leftist activism. There’s something to be said for shouting about what’s wrong with this world as loud as you can. But there’s a point where the audience goes deaf, assuming they were not born this way. Radical documentary practice will look like something else, and that may be much different than what we’ve come to expect.
I found Rob’s mention of live documentary provocative, and looked more closely at an approach referred to as “Social Acupuncture.” I think this approach offers new possibilities and dilemmas worth engaging with as contemporary documentary practitioners. It also presents a profound ideological challenge to accepted notions of the documentarian as artist, as author, and as civic participant.
Darren O’Donnell’s work entitled Social Acupuncture: A Guide to Suicide, Performance and Utopia (a bit hard to track down, but look for it in Pages on Queen St.) is at once delightfully inflammatory and intellectually incisive, as any act of “social acupuncture” should be. It’s a call to action for rethinking social relationships and subverting power dynamics using public performance and participation. It’s also a nice entry into a conversation that looks at where participation and documentary collide in a new media context. O’Donnell explains:
Social acupuncture might be described as ‘entreveillance,’ observation from between or within, the scrutiny of one another within a dynamic of evenly distributed power, where the observed can walk away from the camera at any point and the interest is in observing the quotidian rather than anything spectacular (61).
In the work Rob mentioned, entitled Q&A, individuals from within a group are invited on stage to field questions from other participants, able to refuse to answer any question at their discretion. The process of documentation becomes disseminated through the entire collective of individuals involved, as each member not only becomes a potential component of the documentary “material,” but also a vital documentarian as they bear witness to the events transpiring.
The spontaneous, ephemeral and profoundly participatory nature of this kind of interactive documentary questions assumptions about what documentary practice can and should be. What is the nature of the “document” being produced here? What does “documentary” mean if no tangible trace remains?
If the power of the work lies in the embodied, participatory presentness of the situation, what possibilities exist for forms of documentation that preserve the spirit and power of the activity? It is because this activity defies conventional modes and impulses of documentation, that it must be perpetually recreated to produce unique specificities but predictable generalities, that it gestures at something truly radical.
No festivals. No galleries. No awards. It’s just something you do.
Thank you! Your entries are what we had in mind for these blogs! Keep the dialog going!
Hey Graham,
Just finished the essay portion in Social Acupuncture. I had a similar reaction. Inspiring to read, but still had troubles deciding how to best document, or at least, continue this form of practice. It really relies on the energy of a guy like Darren and his team, Mammalian Diving Reflex, to get it going, continually creating new interventions and performances.
Darren is obviously hoping he can find a way to make it register more politically, or at least resonate on a wider community and it raises the question, what does this really do for the community (The pessimist in me)? The work with the high school kids seems exceptionally productive to me. I love that he helps them dispel notions about their community as being unsafe, and that he dispels the fear of dealing with strangers. The House Visits were also very interesting, especially when they come across people who are suspect of them and don’t want to participate.
The ’social acupuncture’ definitely works best when it is truly uncomfortable rather than just a lark or whimsical. Asking the most affluent person to give money to the poorest is one of those moments, but he really hopes people can get beyond the situation they are in. What i mean, is that one of those affluent people felt compelled to offer that $130 to the poorest person most likely because of the situation they are in (a theatre with a crowd). He’s hoping people will puncture back, I’m not sure how often they do. How do you motivate a crowd or an individual to do the opposite of what the mob mentally seems to compel them to do? That’s the dynamic I’m especially interested in.
There is certainly a difficulty in bringing the event to a wider audience and trying to make it resonate in a greater body politic. Conventional image-based forms or even word of mouth seem inadequate. While continually staging such events is the only way to “recreate the magic,” it surely takes a great toll on all involved. Can it really transcend art practice to become life practice?
Also, despite all his fears about preaching to the choir, it takes a certain type of open-minded individual to participate in these events and allow themselves to be subject to occasionally stressful situations. I think those open to acupuncture are those who need the treatment least.
I agree that points at which real tension emerges are the most interesting and productive. There needs to be a balance between accessibility and challenge, and I think Mammalian Diving Reflex often hits that mark.
Check this out – Gabby Moser is an MA at York and curator. In this post she’s debating the ideas around social acupuncture. Check the comments too, Darren responds.
http://gabriellemoser.blogspot.com/