Concrete Performance

The performance was carried out in the period 22 January 2023 until 22 January 2025. As the author of the artistic project, I feel the need to emphasize the information mentioned earlier with regard to the temporal parameter (spanning from the beginning until the end of the performance), which creates an accumulated temporal distance as a referential characteristic and value in the attached work itself. This data, which is the driving force of the artistic project, will figure and shape, interpret, characterize and actualize the work of art. This is done with the intent of creating a fictitious performance, which will include or exclude certain aesthetic performance methods, criteria, classifications, elements, characteristics, contexts and concepts either partially or with extremely minimized elements. The marginalization of the aforementioned performance values is an author’s impulse and choice to keep their presence to a minimum in the constitution of this artistic product, and as such statement it can refer to and exist as a work of art. Such attitudes towards the omission of the performance values are my driving content and they trace the course of movement in the interpretation of the aforementioned performance (and in fact I will not carry out any performance) to reach a stage where the artistic action, the act of behavior, the physical maneuver, the gestural suggestions or any attribute suggestions that would associate the thematic content, the narrative constitution or the concept, as well as the concept in its entirety will not be present in this aesthetic product. This does not mean that the visual attributes mentioned above are not given any importance, but rather that the performance is activated for the sake of aesthetically autonomous criteria and attitudes of the author and the visual interpretation and the characteristics of the concept are to marginalize, eliminate and reduce them to a minimum, as much as possible, with the aim and tendency to identify the visual work with the concept of nothing or the terminology of nothingness, and I intend to achieve this with the help of my articulated aesthetic criteria and knowledge. I do not direct any advance ready or directed artistic action or spontaneous artistic configuration, which expresses the author’s current aesthetic impulse without a previous or preconceived concept, to be performed and realized in front of the audience. This is done not because I have no need for expression, but rather because I do not assign meaning to the action that shapes the concept; and therefore, as such a mobilized essence, by the interpretation supported by content in this performance I try to eliminate and not include it or leave it out as much as possible and have it partially or to a lesser extent present in the author’s statement, in order to apply the concept of nothingness from as many of its profiling angles as possible. During the two-year period while I was carrying out this performance (and I was actually not performing anything), I behaved as an individual who performs his daily duties, habits and activities and accumulates the current state and atmosphere, and so this individualized setting contributed to not calculating with the usual activities. Instinctively, with the mediation of the conscious and subconscious, I organized myself to shape the moment, the day, the month, the two years, that is, to function as an ordinary person, and not as an artist, and I would like to emphasize – not as artist. All acquired sequences that were accumulated in the author’s consciousness through the experience of the multitude of situations, conditions, authentic needs, specific articulations and activated manneristic gestural actions were transformed into mentally structured actions that were complemented by physical activity that initially can be associated with an artistic interpretation realized during the two-year period, but I treat such bodily activities as ordinary life and classify them as artistic action or artistic performance. The ritual of drinking coffee in a cafeteria, shopping in a store, walking through the streets, socializing with people, household activities, watching television, resting and all daily activities whose number is too large and specific to list completely and in chronological order, because it is a two-year period transformed into a multitude of events, and the mentioned and implemented actions are not characterized or emphasized as an artistic product. With its very own conception, the performance is aimed at rejecting the boundary
between art and life, because an event, with its emphasis, becomes a work of art (D. Čalović).
Guided by this statement, and with the intention of not falling into this aesthetically defined formulation, I distance myself and do not single out any event or action with the need to emphasize or mark it as an act of artistic performance in order to exploit the theme of nothingness in the artistic practice.  Uvod-u-teoriju-moderne-i-postmoderne-likovne-umetnosti.-Dragan-Calovic.pdf (Introduction in the theory of modern and postmodern art. Dragan Calovic)

It is the virtue of the aesthetic philosophical etymology that forms the artistic freedom
whose unlimited formulations, principles and methods allow the author to paraphrase and
manipulate them as far as his intellectual imagination can reach, and even if that imaginative
visualization does not initially contain aesthetic values, in the course of an evolutionary
process the author can change that constant, at least for himself with certainty, if he is
sufficiently aesthetically competent for the participants also, by imposing his created criteria
(Abstaining from art).

In fact, we come to a situation where the awareness of the author, who possesses control enhanced by the authority, can result in any of his events being declared and defined as a moving artistic performance whose characteristics and postulates contribute to such a definition being constituted and reformulated as a work of art. The above theoretical statement by Dragan Čalović, supplemented by a commentary from the work “Abstaining from art” warns us to be cautious, to distance myself from all the actions I took over that two-year period and not to treat or emphasize them as an artistic action or performance.

I will try, in the sphere of theoretical research, to specify and compare which criteria and classifications are present, exploited, marginalized or completely omitted from this stated textually documented visual performance. As the author of this work, I set out to eliminate as much as possible the aesthetic values such as the segmented contents of the criteria and classifications of visual performance, because these cultural phenomena shape the performance plot (concept), which with its presence annuls the essence of nothingness. The tendency to remove as much as possible the aforementioned and other constant aestheticized shapers of visual performance was done with the intention of approaching the theme of nothingness in the visual performance art. In order to evaluate how much I have succeeded in this intention, I would use and move in the chronological order of the theoretical literature that addresses the criteria and classifications of performance in the book “Glossary of Contemporary Arts” by Miško Šuvaković.

The criteria for performance classification are:

(1) Criterion by place of performance: private performance (without an audience,
without a random audience or without a small number of collaborators); gallery and
museum performance; performance in nature and in urban space. In this artistic project, I only emphasize the information regarding the time parameter (that encompasses the beginning until the end of the performance). This data is the driver and will shape the work of art, and in the emphasized time period there are a multitude of physical actions, situations and incidents that I do not characterize or emphasize as an artistic product, but are treated as an ordinary human event. The act of not emphasizing the stated conditions contributes to the fact that I have not performed in front of an audience, I have not involved a random audience in the structure of the work, nor have I engaged competent collaborators who, with their figurative presence, would contribute to the performance of the work of art, and I disclaim that I have performed without an audience, that is, I do not place my individualized actions on an artistic pedestal, that is, I do not make a performance for the sake of performance, or a performance for the sake of myself. This factual situation is also reflected in the conclusion that since there is no artistic action and the concept is reduced to a minor information, such a setting and construction of the situation contribute to the fact that I have not interpreted or manifested an act either in a classic gallery or museum space or in an ambient object with unconventional or experimental elements of spatiality. This work does not need a localized space for its exposure, which implies that there is no need for representation from an alternative place or locality of performance such as nature or urban space.

(2) Criterion of author-performer: The author of the performance is also the
performer of the performance; the author of the performance is not the performer of the
performance, and performers can be professional actors and dancers, artists and the
audience. The work “Concretized Performance” has a constitution that results in the situation that the visual product, in order to exist as an aesthetic product, does not need an individual or a collective to interpret the suggested acts that will form a plot reflected as a visual performance. My individualized figure distances itself from those established postulates and is not executor of the performance, nor does the work have the need to engage presenting individuals such as actors, dancers, colleagues or with a causal effect to involve the audience by manipulating or making it active participant who will influence and contribute to the realization of the work itself. This work does not need a performer or performers.

(3) Event criterion: The performance is performed as a real literal event (the artist’s
behavior, physical action, bodily and spatial-temporal relationships) or as a staged event
(depicts a real event, creates a narrative situation, summarizes the time of an actual event). Since the concept of the presented work is minor and extremely indifferent (only the time parameter is stated) and everything else refers to the destruction and deconstruction of the performance as a means of expression, the author’s destructive approach is considered as an urge for artistic experimentation, a stance that defines that I do not classify or identify the urge as an act of direction. Such a stance constructs a formulation and adds a supported conclusion that there is no previously directed plot in the work, only marginalized content is present that does not need to be presented and articulated with a certain narrative situation as an act of performance or to be presented through the medium of performance that would represent a summary of time through a real event or current state. Therefore, for the first classification as an actual literal event, I believe that this artistic product also distances itself from this criterion because there is no action in the format of the artist’s behavior, nor is there any bodily action present, with the intention to distance myself from all the actions I did in that two-year period and not treat or emphasize them by defining them as an artistic action or performance. These two segmented criteria become constants that are isolated and not present in the cited work.

(4) Media criterion: The performance is executed directly in front of an audience,
without media mediation; the performance is carried out without an audience and the
audience watches the event on a live TV-video broadcast, and a video or film screen with the
broadcast material is part of the performance (video and film performance).

I am not interpreting my work in front of a classical standardized audience nor do I use any technical aids to present it as a video or film performance, the work is not isolated from media support, and I will explain in which form it is presented. The medium through which I expose and concretize the performance is the written word, more precisely the text itself. I classify and formulate the text as a textually documented artistic performance. Thus, the choice was to choose the text as a medium to convey my minimized concept, and to redirect the classical artistic audience that absorbs through visualization as a consumer and participant from the readership. With the aim of getting closer to the terminology of the “nothing” in aesthetics, it is necessary to avoid the textual medium as a reference value. However, my imagination has not found another appropriate creative solution to revise and present the context of this work in a more minimalist way, other than as a textually documented artistic performance.

(5) Criteria and types of activities: physical performance based on movement and
work with the human body; oral or sound performance set to an event realized with voice
and sound; spoken performance based on speaking text; dance performance based on
elements of dance and ballet. Historical performance is the history of the transformation of
the artistic object into an event (life situation, real event, historical event), and the idea of the
event as a work of art is realized from several different, but interconnected directions.

A large part of the performance elements, criteria, classifications and other attributes (from point 5) have been eliminated. When the structures and conditions of the artistic product are placed in that connotation, it results in a factual situation that contributes to the rejection of the characteristics that express the concept associatively through bodily gestural interpretation from the work. The telling of the story of the work through the author’s individualized narration using voice or articulated sound is omitted, the elements that suggestively affirm the narrative through the act of dance, play or ballet are removed, there is no presentation of an authentic life event, the overtones of a real event are eliminated, thus one can conclude that these performance values are not present and are omitted in my performance. The performance, which is carried out by speaking a text can lead to confusion that the text of this work possesses that characteristic. I am distancing myself from this formulation as I do not read the text in front of an audience aware that this act will make a performance, but I am offering the text as a format of a post-interpretative constitution, and I create it as a post-narrator who communicates my urge. Unfortunately, I find myself and believe that I use the performance criterion in the formulation of a certain dynamic historical situation because as an author I indicate a time distance between the beginning and the end of the performance and as a post-narrative I communicate this through text, a situation that contributes to summarizing a historical situation of a two-year period. I would gladly distance myself from this situation, but I did not find the appropriate creativity to do the amputation of this criterion. And I will add that I do not combine or cause symbiosis with elements of mutual relationship between the other types of activities mentioned.

With regard to the previously-stated information, i.e. the criteria and classifications of the performance, I tried to make a comparative analysis using an analytical approach, aiming to cause a formal difference in order to get a clearer picture of the attributes that are applied or distanced from the artistic performance. I tried as much as possible to interpret a constructive approach to the analysis itself, which resulted in the conclusion that apart from two performance criteria and characteristics, the others with their sub-points are marginalized or completely distanced from the content of the artistic product I am presenting. This approach to the preparation of the construction and form of the work resulted in devaluation and subsequent impoverishment or an attempt on my part to reach the edge of dematerialization, amputation of artistic components, elements, methods and principles. The dysfunctionality of the artistic product as an act of behavior would cause a de- emphasis on the concrete situation, which would contribute to declaring it an artistic performance, a need that has been applied and would contribute to reduction to the extreme limits of the concept, and the neutralization of the concept is a result of the destructive aesthetic attitudes of the creator, while the creative setting does not allow to construct a work of art with an extremely minimalist aestheticized mannerism. The destruction and deconstruction of the performance in this work is evident, but the author had a great need to remain present in the aesthetic performance atmosphere due to the urge to create the work. This state is achieved with the statement presenting the factual situation of the role of the author, namely emphasizing that from 22 January 2023 to 22 January 2025 the author carried out an artistic performance. However, only this information plays the drama on the aesthetic podium since the other attributes, such as the scenography, actors, extras, script, music, lighting effects, requisition, dramaturgy and a number of other elements of the stage were discarded in order to integrate the theme of nothingness into the aesthetic structure.

The quotes that I will exploit in the following part of the text represent my views, which have been presented in the work “Abstaining from art”, my first artistic project that treats the theme, essence and the bodily adaptation of the author to interpret the terminology of “nothing”. The mentioned views that deal with the current theme in the role of referential characteristics are elaborated as my opinions on the works “Abstaining from art” and “Concretized Performance” (as my third work that treats the theme of nothingness), thereby reaching a stage where both works share and process an identical theme, which as such mutually coexist and represent one opus of the author. The cultural standpoint that I had taken with regard to the work ”Abstaining from art” is largely implemented in the work “Concretized Performance”, but since I am treating two separate artistic projects there are certain differences that I would characterize as constructive super-structures that mark a tendency of a developmental path for understanding the theme of nothingness. I further wish to point out at and direct you towards those super-structures. I thus
come to the conclusion that nothingness in the visual sphere is only a momentary apparent
visual illusion that manipulates the senses of the participant, and that the manipulative
aesthetic imagination (i.e. the nothingness) does not correspond to and is not able to establish
a complete constellation with the concept that has the authority identical to the ether and
vacuum in nature to form and represent a concretized thing. My conclusion fully emphasizes the concept as the driving shaper of a contemporary work of art. The ideological essence in
aesthetics contributes to isolate the nothingness, and in the view of the author, without an
idea or a concept, it is impossible to create an aesthetic product (Abstaining from art). I would specifically refer to this quote and make a correlation of the concept as the most authoritative element that constructs a work of art; therefore as such the concept annuls and destructs the essence of the current topic. In my work “Concretized Performance” I want to put it on a pedestal, to stimulate it and make it absolute, so that the nothing can exist as much as possible. In order to reach that aestheticized desired goal, I tried to minimize the conceptual content or the concept to the extent of my sensitive, imaginative and creative knowledge and possibilities. From the perspective of viewing, it is a rather complex process to annul the concept in the artistic exhibit, but if alternative perspectives are sought for visualizing and theorizing the aesthetic problematic that is translated into the formulation for its removal to the most minimalist norms, some alternative methods can contribute to simplify the process of removal of the concept from the artistic performance. However, a dilemma arises whether the treatment of nothingness in a work can grow into a concept. My position is that it can and I cannot distance myself from it, because this topic already appeared in my previous two works “Abstaining from art” and “Deconstruction of the Matter and the Material”. However, in order to unmask this dilemma, I will try to give several subjective explanations. The position of the author vis-à-vis the aforementioned issue is of great importance. I would like to list several vivid examples where I would illustrate an artistic action where the vocation of nothingness is applied, which due to its use remains in force only rhetorically and as a symbol, and in fact its essence is melted, defined and profiled in the principles of the concept. An example of an artistic performance with factual situations such as: I was not wearing any clothes, i.e. I had nothing on, and I performed the act naked with the intention of equating the nakedness of the body with nothingness. Or: I distanced myself from material goods, such as finances and existentialist influences for a certain period of time (while the performance was being executed), and the isolation from the material or the absence of anything material did not involve nothingness. In such formats of action and construction of the performance, the nothingness is present on the stage only in the form of rhetoric that hints at associative imagery, and yet presents a plot enhanced by physical artistic action that shapes the content, and thus moves to becomes a driving concept. Thus, I only use the concept of nothing rhetorically and associatively, and the acts of performing a certain situation build the content that forms a concept. However, should one enter the vocabulary of the nothingness, in its very essence and in the core of the aforementioned term and its removal is practiced in a literal sense, rather than partially and allegorically, this contributes to renunciation of the criteria and classifications of the performance (which is what I am trying to achieve in the presented work that does not engage the elements, components, methods and principles of the chosen medium). The author’s engagement is focused, as much as possible, to deactivating the story, thus dematerializing the physical gesticulation, minimizing the initiative of the plot that will be made less burdened by information, to contributing to the dysfunctionality of the allegorical narrative and reducing the concentration of the content values in the performance. The partial abstinence of these characteristics trace the path of partial, emphasize on the partial, lack of involvement and engagement of the concept in the visual work, which is what I am trying to achieve in this particular case. The artistic product of the present
shifts the criteria and attitudes towards the concept by being able to marginalize it, while not
being able to completely leave it out (Abstaining from art). I am activating myself to build on my previous position, and thus as a representative of the work “Concretized Performance” in a Sisyphean manner, I am trying to amputate the concept to its core.

The freedom of expression has long been a surpassed stage in art. Therefore, as an
author, I am trying to minimize the concept as much as possible, and thus influence a change
in the quantity of the plot and in the physiognomy of the essence to be performed in the
“sfumato” technique. This blurring initially masks the content, offering a cultural mysticism
that will require certain capacity and awareness of the participant in order to unmask it
(Abstaining from art). In view of unmasking the concept and separating the work “Concretized Performance” from the tension of the fogginess, I am offering poor, but by my standards, sufficient information that I have performed the cultural product in the current medium in the period from 22 January 2023 to 22 January 2025.