In corpore sano, acta non verba: permanent performance under precariousness

Abstract

Performance art is a passionate objection to how contemporary work damages people and planet through a constant drive to perform. I examine this phenomenon using a provocative practice-as-research methodology which imbricates theory and performance autoethnography with art making and documenting. Findings are derived through artworks involving blood toxins, a discarded turkey body, 500 Financial Times newspapers, life-threatening blood pressure readings, apples, 101 Google translations, fish, governmental grand narratives, cola jus, tea cakes pressed by a person with diabetes, collective balloon popping, binary code poetry, a 7.5 hour-long performance appraisal, and hope. I argue that practice-as-research is, in itself, a compositional strategy for precariousness and that it can temporarily pause the constant drive to perform.