‘placelessness’ mean for performance and
Live Art, the art form with an umbilical cord to real space and real time?
In his famous essay ‘Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, Walter
Benjamin reflected on the shifting nature of the ‘cult’ status of art
objects. Whereas before the age of mechanical reproduction one would
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10.1057/9780230597723 - Performance and Place, Edited by Leslie Hill and Helen Paris
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6 Mapping the Territory
have had to travel to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa, in the new age
one could buy a cheap, high-quality poster of the Mona Lisa to hang on
the wall at home. Even in an age of ‘reproduction’, however, there still
exists an awe, a ‘cult’ status around the original art object, an ‘aura’.
Despite having the poster, the mousepad and the coffee mug, people
will queue for hours to stand in front of the Mona Lisa for a brief
face-to-face encounter with the original – the real thing. If you watch
the crowds of tourists in the Louvre encountering this cult status
artwork face to face, you will notice that more often than not they use
the big moment to take a photograph. Odd.