Enjoy a complimentary cup of coffee and join Penn History of Art PhD and PennDesign MFA candidates for an intimate conversation inspired by the ICA exhibitions on view.

In this conversation, we will ask questions about “the document” to look at systems of the image or record as the paramount document of performance. We’ll think about how techniques of improvisational performance problematize the communication of ideas through images. How does improvisation affect how we remember a performance? In what ways does recording improvisation create fixity while often improvisation reflects moments of instability, flexibility and vulnerability? Can records of the improvisational past reflect in our future? Can the record of the moment create a shift in the access of certain cultural notions and privileged sites of art making? Together we’ll look at the works of George Lewis, Cassils, John Cage, Adrian Piper, and Lorraine O’Grady. We’ll be looking at texts including The Performativity of Performance Documentation by Philip Auslander and More Brilliant Than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction by Kodwo Eshun.

Laura Carlson is a second-year MFA candidate at the University of Pennsylvania and was born in Nebraska. Carlson’s work explores the corporeal discomfort of bodies and the spatial discomfort of built environments through video, performance, and situation making. Carlson holds a BFA in Art History and Studio Art from Creighton University and has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions around the United States.

NEW! Join Laura for a guided tour of the Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 to Now at 12:30pm. You can sign up for the tour at the front desk.

This event is free and open to the public. Register here.