{"id":809,"date":"2026-05-27T17:22:03","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T17:22:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/33\/?p=809"},"modified":"2026-06-26T10:34:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T10:34:20","slug":"digital-archiving-of-one-to-one-performance-from-singular-co-presence-to-collective-engagement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/33\/digital-archiving-of-one-to-one-performance-from-singular-co-presence-to-collective-engagement\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Archiving of One-to-One Performance: From Singular Co-Presence to Collective Engagement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ana Tecar<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abstract<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

One-to-one performances are understood as intersubjective encounters grounded in the ontology of presence and co-presence shared between a single performer and a single participant. Consequently, theoretical discourse has considered co-presence within one-to-one relational experiments only in a limited way. Researchers such as Rachel Gomme, Rachel Zerihan, and Dominic Johnston, along with one-to-one performance practitioners, have approached these relational contexts through the particularized co-presence established exclusively between two subjects: the performer and the participant-coauthor. The paper analyzes the works Footwashing for the Sole<\/font> by Adrian Howells, Rope Piece<\/font> by Tehching Hsieh, and Marina Abramovic’s The Artist is Present<\/font>, questioning: How the singular, ontological co-presence is deconstructed in the condition in which these performances are archived through digital documentation? How do the artists of a one-to-one dialogue perform the personal encounter with one spectator, given that the interaction also involves the participation (at a distance) of a third spectator-witness or a community of participants to whom the performance was not intentionally addressed in the performative present? Finally, the paper suggests rethinking the typology of one-to-one performance, not as an exclusively dialogical co-presence, but also as a collective engagement and reception that is destructuring the emotional proximity between the performer and the participant.

Keywords:<\/strong> collective one-to-one performance, co-presence, intersubjectivity, third other, performance documentation, \u201cperformative now\u201d\/recorded time<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ontology of Presence and Co-Presence in One-to-One Performance: From Ephemerality to Documentation and Representation<\/strong><\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

One of the fundamental characteristics of one-to-one performance typology lies in the fact that this practice has often been theorised through a model of reception that entails the spectator-participant\u2019s engagement in corpore, in praesentia<\/em>. The participatory model, as discussed by theorists of one-to-one, is that of a singular, intersubjective co-presence shared between a single<\/em> performer and a single <\/em>participant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main objective of this work is to investigate the manner in which the participatory model of one-to-one interactions also engages a dimension of shared participation once the performer resorts to digital archiving and documentation tools. I aim to explore how, through documentation, the singular co-presence shared in the one-to-one relationship between performer and participant becomes a plural co-presence, one that implies collective participation and reception. In this way, the dyadic relationship extends towards audiences or communities of spectators who have not attended the performance in praesentia<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This singular co-presence, as explored within the dialogism of one-to-one performance, is correlated with the ontology of performance art and with a presentist essence of this practice. The ontological understanding of one-to-one performance, as articulated by practitioners, revolves around a specific expectation: that one-to-one encounters can foster an intense emotional closeness, based on shared intersubjectivity, on co-presence situated within a unique, unrepeatable temporal moment\u2013a \u201cperformative now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This intersubjective encounter is understood by practitioners as being based on an authentic form of communication (devoid of theatricality), anticipated even before the actual moment of performing.[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, both practitioners and theorists approach one-to-one performance through the uniqueness<\/em> of the encounter, due primarily to the unmediated nature of the event. The most influential presentist perspective on the ontology of performance remains that put forward by Peggy Phelan, who suggests that \u201cperformance honours the idea that a limited number of people in a specific time\/space frame can have an experience of value, which leaves no visible trace afterward\u201d (106). Caroline Wake takes up Phelan\u2019s discussion of presentist intersubjectivity, elaborating on it and considering it particularly characteristic of one-to-one encounters (qtd. in Phelan 106).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast with this essentialist line of thought\u2013which associates performance art with the live presence of the performer and with the authenticity of the artistic experience\u2013scholars such as Philip Auslander, and Cormac Power[2]<\/sup><\/a> argue that performativity should no longer be understood exclusively through immediacy<\/em>, as the direct energetic exchange between performer and audience in an unrepeatable moment.[3]<\/sup><\/a> Rather, they emphasise the interdependence between the \u201clive\u201d and the \u201crecorded,\u201d up to the point where the boundaries between the two collapse. Corresponding to this live\/recorded<\/em> interdependence is the interrelation between mediated one-to-one intersubjectivity and a more deeply engaged<\/em> experience of community. Auslander underscores that a heightened sense of communal belonging is not contingent upon a form of dialogism shared within the immediacy of live performative interaction. In Auslander’s terms,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[\u2026] communality is not a function of liveness. The sense of community arises from being part of an audience, and the quality of the community experience derives from the specific audience situation, not from the spectacle for which that audience has gathered. I would argue against the idea that live performance itself somehow generates whatever sense of community one may experience (65).
[\u2026] mediatized performance makes just as effective a focal point for the gathering of a social group as live performance. (64)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consequently, when examining the one-to-one performance, it can be understood that the exclusive focus on relationality within a presumed authentic present may, paradoxically, foster a more deeply engaged<\/em> reception of collective engagement, precisely as a result of the performance\u2019s digital mediation.This idea stands in direct contrast to the presentist ontology of performance as discussed by Peggy Phelan and by other practitioners of one-to-one encounters such as Adrian Howells and Marina Abramovi\u0107.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Delving deeper into these perspectives\u2013which challenge dichotomies such as presence\/absence, performance\/documentation, \u201cperformative now\u201d\/recorded time\u2013we find that in one-to-one encounters there emerges a complementarity between in corpore<\/em> co-presence and the effect of mediated presence once the performance becomes archived. In this regard, Josette F\u00e9ral elaborates on the concept of effet de pr\u00e9sence<\/em> (qtd in Ahluwalia, 5). The effect of presence<\/em>, she argues, is a constructive mechanism whereby, despite the absence of the performer, the spectator retains the perception that the \u201creality\u201d of documentation presented to them belongs to their own hic et nunc<\/em>. Through documentation, the effect of bodily presence may be constructed via strategies that allow the viewer of the recorded performance to feel as if <\/em>they are in the performer\u2019s proximity (Ahluwalia 4). Thus, the means of reproduction of the one-to-one performance render presence simultaneously a representation, a theatricalization <\/em>of presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starting from these effects of presence<\/em>\u2013deployed as aesthetic strategies, one-to-one performance can no longer be grasped solely through an ontology built around the conventions of anti-theatricality. One-to-one encounters can instead be understood through what Philip Auslander terms the performativity of documentation<\/em> (7), through a theatricalization <\/em>of documentation, once co-presence ceases to be exclusive to the one-to-one dyad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theoretical debates of co-presence in one-to-one performance, when correlated with ontology, generally refer to a corporeal presence dimension. Co-presence thus entails physical cohabitation, grounded in the mutual anchoring of performer and participant within the same performative temporal and spatial frame. Thus, debates on co-presence primarily involve relating this notion to the temporal and spatial framework within which the performance takes place. If we are to consider a spatial co-presence within one-to-one actions, space often does not suggest a fictional topos<\/em>, but rather constitutes a space performed as real, complementary to the present time of the performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which are the effects of proximity employed within this spatiality when that affective transfer is documented and mediated into another space? Furthermore, in discussing co-presence in relation to temporality, questions arise as to how performance is influenced when opened both to the immediacy of face-to-face engagement and to the future reception of the documented performance. How does this temporal conditioning shape the affective one-to-one exchange?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Intersubjectivity in One-to-One Performance: Perspectives on Singular Co-Presence<\/strong><\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Theoretical discourse around one-to-one encounters rarely takes into account an analysis of these practices in relation to a questioning of being-in-common. <\/em>Instead, it tends to foreground only the intersubjective dimension of the one-to-one dialogue. Rachel Zerihan, for example, discusses the \u201cobsessive monogamous relation\u201d (5) typical of one-to-one performance, the singularised dialogism between a solo performer and a participant. Similarly, Rachel Gomme affirms this singularised engagement of one-to-one performance, arguing that the intensity of an affective dialogue\u2013based on a spatial-temporal co-presence, \u201ccharged with energy\u201d\u2013may be shared only between one <\/em>performer and one<\/em> participant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Not So Close Encounters: Searching for Intimacy in One-to-One Performance<\/em>, Rachel Gomme notes: \u201c[\u2026] there is still a sense that something that can be termed \u2018intimacy\u2019 should be felt on both sides\u2013a passage of affect shared between two beings\u201d (28). For Gomme, one-to-one performances are: \u201cindividualised experiences personally constructed for the spectator-participant\u201d (282). She goes on to assert that \u201cit is significant for the one-to-one performance that intimacy is considered the province of two individuals rather than a plurality\u201d<\/em> (284).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The possibility of collective interaction within one-to-one actions is not generally addressed by performance art studies. In a debate accompanied by interviews with one-to-one practitioners, Dominic Johnston in The Art of Living: An Oral History of Performance Art<\/em>, identifies as a symptomatic feature of this category of performance its \u201cquintessentially singular, intimate, and ephemeral character, alongside a rejection of recording mechanisms\u02ee (263). In most cases, thinking about performing being-in-common<\/em> is associated with performative forms that embrace a socio-political engagement or activism. For instance, in Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship<\/em>, Claire Bishop contrasts what she calls \u201cparticipatory art\u201d, involving large numbers of participants, with one-to-one dialogic performative actions (38).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast to these theoretical approaches to one-to-one performance that preclude a model of relationality involving the gaze of a third<\/em> alterity (or an opening towards a community of spectators), I propose an expansion of this limited understanding of intersubjectivity. I articulate an expanded typology of examining one-to-one works\u2013that of the collective one-to-one performance<\/em>, which entails the presence of a third witness: the spectator-observer from the future audience of documentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adrian Howells, Footwashing for the Sole<\/em><\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

In the one-to-one performance Footwashing for the Sole<\/em>, Adrian Howells created sessions in which he washed and massaged participants\u2019 feet. Thereafter, he engaged them in conversations, prompting a range of personal confessions. At the end of the encounter, and only with the participants\u2019 consent, he would kiss their feet. Each spectator\u2019s allocated time lasted approximately 20\u201330 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to the physical engagement demanded by his performances, as well as their therapeutic dimension, Howells asserted that the encounters he created were antitheatrical. Although aware of the inherent instability of authenticity within performance art, he nonetheless regarded the relational contexts he generated as authentic: \u201cMy work prioritizes interpersonal connectedness and what I refer to as an authentic experience between two people\u201d (qtd. in Heddon 4).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deidre Heddon, meanwhile, interprets the relational dynamics proposed by the artist as fundamentally dialogical, grounded in reciprocity:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adrian structures his performances around dual notions of \u2018transaction\u2019 and \u2018transformation\u2019, with exchange anchored in the dialogic [\u2026]. In this form of performance practice\u2013intimate, personal and interactive\u2013the boundary between performer and spectator dissolves in the process of exchange, [\u2026] that asks for a very committed and at times vulnerable sort of spectatorship. (2)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The affective co-presence that Howells sought to cultivate was addressed in highly personal and individualised<\/em> terms, shaped by the subjectivity of each participant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Howells\u2019 practice articulates an ontological vision of co-presence in performance art. For the artist, the opening towards the other through co-presence manifests exclusively in the terms formulated by Peggy Phelan, namely, an energetic exchange of embodied presences within a spatial-temporal\u201cperformative now\u201d (148).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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