Analysis: Grounded in theatre but branching into many other art forms, performance art has always been disruptive and unpredictable
Dublin was recently in the world's spotlight due to a misbehaving portal and its playful, entertaining, amusing and sometimes offending performances. The concept is simple but powerful: a video portal that connects citizens in Dublin and New York instantly through a real-time video feed. The project is an initiative of the Portals Project, founded by Benekditas Gylys, a self-described active angel-investor and successful entrepreneur-turned artist inspired by his journey of self-revelation in search of a more meaningful life and to bridge cultures from around the world, as stated in the project’s website.
The noble aim of the Portal contrasts sharply with the unexpected and transgressive events in Dublin recently, as described in media outlets around the world. On the 9th of May, the Irish Times described the enthusiastic engagement of passersby in Dublin as a sign of its success, with kisses, dance-offs and cartwheels being exchanged, but also pointing out how quickly it became transgressive: 'It took at least half an hour before a guy in a flannel top on the New York side gave the middle finger to the Dubliners, who repeated the gesture back at him enthusiastically.’ Other reported incidents such as episodes of "mooning", displaying swearwords, flashing various body parts’ and an instance of a Dublin user displaying a video of the 9/11 attacks in New York led to the Portal temporarily being closed.
The concept of the Portal is grounded in several previous performance art projects. Back in 1980, artists Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz developed a Hole in Space, a live video feed displayed on large video screens in public spaces connecting the cities of Los Angeles and New York. At the time, reports described how passersby were mesmerised by this unique experience, with no mention of unruly episodes.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland, Portal between Dublin and New York restarts after being paused due to inappropriate behaviour
So what went wrong in Dublin? Perhaps performance art can answer this question. Grounded in theatre but branching into many other art forms, performance art has always been disruptive and unpredictable. In the early 1900s, the Italian Futurists became famous for their seratas, evenings of entertainment where performers provoked the audience to a point where the dividing line between performers and audience (the 'fourth wall') was broken and riots ensued, with the police being called and the events making it to the papers the next day. Paradoxically, this was a successful outcome for the Futurists. However, in the case of the portal it was the audience—consisting of specific Dublin citizens—who are inciting disruption while the artist appeals ‘for "family friendly" behaviour from visitors’.
As Umberto Eco wrote in The Open Work: "every work of art is an interpretation and a performance of it". Therefore, the citizens enact their own performance with the video portal by translating the artist’s vision (uniting human beings around the world) and reappropriating its use for their own purposes (from dance-offs to offensive engagement). The events in Dublin reflect individual traits - how we individually interpret the Portal - and, to a certain extent, our more lenient approach to urban agency - as in New York there were barriers erected around the Portal. But it is also an indication of the huge influence that social media has upon us.
Read more: What can we learn from Ireland's fraught history with public art?
The whole experience of contemporary appreciation of art is telling: one of the most popular 'museums' in recent times has no works of art whatsoever: the Museum of Ice Cream is a purely Instagrammable space, full of fun, brightly coloured, ‘adult playground experiences’ ready to be displayed onto visitor’s social media platforms at a hefty entrance price. In this sense it is no surprise that several transgressive citizens used the Portal to film their acts and posted them on social media, as inappropriate as they might be.
The fact that a performance art project such as the Portal has incited conversation and enabled reflection on the current state of social and spatial interaction in Dublin is perhaps a marker of its success, even as it took an unexpected turn. And the decision to keep it open after the unfortunate events must be commended. While we expect civilised behaviour in Dublin, we do not desire to live in a city where our lives are fully controlled, policed and pre-empted. This would be a dystopian scenario that is best assigned to autocratic regimes and dystopian sci-fi futures. It is through the tensions that emerge and are exposed by performance art projects that we can start a discussion of what we want for the future of Dublin, and how we want to live collectively in urban space.
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
