Abstract

Chris Burden's early work permeates through the image of an act. However, the means of transmitting said acts deserves critical reexamination. The artworks examined in this proposed  lecture point beyond endurance and the capabilities of the human body, to reveal highly  mediated forms of dissemination and control that are complacent with the status quo of its time.  The four works discussed use the apparatus of television to signal the framework through which  these actions are consumed and thereby, giving the artist more control over how they are  perceived. TV Ad Piece (1973) and TV Hijack (1972) destabilize broadcast television  conventions and trouble the relationship between artist, work and audience. Match Piece  (1972) and Velvet Water (1974) use a closed-circuit monitor, through which the performance is  witnessed, despite the actions happening nearby. Creating this barrier between the artist’s body  and the audience, Burden renegotiates how his work is consumed, and troubles power dynamic  between spectator, artist and affect. 

Affect, as defined by Deleuze and Guattari, can be considered a space of potentiality between  two bodies; within art, affect gains independence from intention and other material grounding, to  produce a physical and temporal reaction from the viewer.1 

This presentation focuses on the medium of television, broadcast and closed-circuit surveillance. The lecture will work within the theoretical framework established in Concept,  Percept, Affect by Deleuze and Guattari and will begin to discuss the force of affect, moving into  Kathy O'Dell's application of Deleuze's specifically male-masochism theory. 

According to O'Dell in Contract with the Skin, the terms of the contract between the masochist  and the perpetrator of violence can be applied to Burden's performance work, as a deal unfolds  between him and a "perfect audience." O’Dell also contextualizes Burden work within the larger historical period of 1970s. The context and construction of the audience will be explored through  No Innocent Bystanders: Performance Art and Audience by Frazer Ward. This will be troubled  as we discuss the historical implications of minimalism and an eroding between subject/object  and public/private, following Ward’s theoretical trajectory, and how this troubles Burden’s  relationship to women in his works. 

These three authors advance a theory of the body beyond representation. They present a  manifold of audience/viewers relationships, pointing outside the artist's body to the infrastructure  of the screen and the television apparatus. 

1. Felicity J. Colman “Affect” in The Deleuze Dictionary ed. Adrian Parr New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.12