You Told Me

You Told Me

Filosofie doktorsavhandling i Fri Konst vid Konsthögskolan Valand, Konstnärliga fakulteten, Göteborgs universitet/

Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Fine Art

Valand School of Fine Arts, Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts, university of Gothenburg

ArtMonitor avhandling nr 19 / Thesis nr 19

Serien ArtMonitor ges ut av Nämnden för konstnärligt utvecklings- arbete vid Konstnärliga fakulteten, Göteborgs universitet/

This dissertation is included in the ArtMonitor series of publications issued by the Board for Artistic Resaerch at the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts, university of Gothenburg

Adress:

ArtMonitor

Konstnärliga fakultetskansliet Box 141

405 30 Göteborg Sweden

www.konst.gu.se

Tryck: Intellecta Infolog AB, Göteborg 2010

Engelsk översättning: William Jewson, Kalle Melander, Lynn Preston, Bettina Schultz

Grafisk design & layout: Emma Corkhill Omslagsbild: Magnus Bärtås

Språkgranskning: Amanda Hicks, Christy Koch, Lynn Preston, Bettina Schultz

© Magnus Bärtås 2010

ISBN: 978-91-977758-8-5

You Told Me

– work stories and video essays/

verkberättelser och videoessäer

Contents

Abstract 7

1. You Told Me

An introduction 9

About the content and structure 15

2. Background

Zero out the narrative line 21

Works with narratives 25

Who is? – a question leading to questions 30 A collection in a space: concordance and discordance 34

Everything starts from the individual 41

3. About methodology

Methods as a way of being in the world 43

Work story 45

Work story and life story 52

Work story and post-construction 58

4. Artistic research – a new old practice 65

Talk talk – and write 69

Sharing the work story 74

5. The video essay

Talking to and listening to images 77

6. Biographies, names, reading and storytelling

The (naïve) emblems of a life story 88

Nomen est omen 92

Reenactment 96

Voices and experience 100

7. Acknowledgements 107

8. Who is Zdenko Bužek? 112

(an extended work story)

9. Kumiko, Johnnie Walker & the Cute 204

(an extended work story)

10. Madame & Little Boy 359

(an extended work story)

11. References 492

You T old Me - Abstract - 7

Abstract − You Told Me

- Work stories and video essays

You Told Me is a practice-based research project and consists of three video biographies (the Who is…? series), and two video essays (Kumiko, Johnnie Walker & the Cute (2007), Madame & Little Boy (2009)), an introduction with a contextualization and methodology of the field, and three essays.

The dissertation is an observation and analysis of certain functions and meanings of narration and narratives in contemporary art, as well as being an experiment with roles, methods, actions, and narrative fun- ctions in an artistic medium – the video essay. Using the methods of

“pilgrimage” (Chris Marker) and essayistic practices, and by revisiting and retelling biographies, this work tries to find a place in between col- lective and personal memory.

During the practical process and the reflective theoretical work the different elements or instances of the video essay are identified: the subject matter, the images (the representation), the artist/author, the narrative/text, and the narrator/voice. In documentary film the lack of natural correspondence between these entities is often dissolved or denied – this work instead exposes the instances as separate units. A question arises: What alternative roles can be established between these elements, for example by negotiation and transference between them?

The methodological part of the text focuses on the conceptual in- vention made during the process, which I have called work story [verk- berättelse]. A work story is a written or oral narrative about the forming of materials, immaterial units, situations, relations, and social practices that constitutes, or leads to, an artwork. By discussing analogies bet- ween storytelling, collecting, and biographical accounts together with examples from conceptual art, the dissertation shows how the work story is not only crucial for the understanding of the artwork but that the act of making and the very order or sequence in which the making proceeds often have symbolic, metaphorical, metonymical, political, and even epistemological meanings.

In an extended form a work story disseminates meaning rather than

capturing it. This is the essayistic work story that permits a writer/artist

to wander off and touch upon a subject as if in passing, reproducing

its neglected genealogy and destiny in the detailed materiality of the

work story.

You T old Me - introduction - 8

1. You told me

An introduction

In the same way that the storyteller doesn’t exist without the story the methodology and subject-matter of research in this dissertation project are inseparable. In this process I am striving to explore constructions of narratives of life stories and stories about the making of art. Th e means for this examination rhymes with the fi eld of investigation: I am telling stories and at the same time experimenting with the forms and strate- gies to create such stories within the context of contemporary art. Or even more simply: I want to bring narratives into art, but also, I want to bring up narratives from their existence in the undercurrents of art.

You Told Me − the three words can be seen as the morphemes of my dissertation project. Th ree words and two persons are involved.

Th e “You” is not a complete stranger, since “Me” is addressing “You” in the past tense. A continuation is also implied; you told me something.

Th is something may be a story, or may be a fact. Depending on which syllable the emphasis is placed on, the three words may indicate other plausible implications: for instance, that the initial telling of something created a binding relation, that the telling was a performative act.

Th is dissertation consists of an introductory text, three text essays, and fi ve video works.

Th e videos are grounded in the You Told Me-

1. Three video biographies (Who is Zdenko Bužek?, Who is Eva Quintas?,Who is Dimitris Hou-

liarakis?) and two video essays (Kumiko, Johnnie Walker & the Cute, Madame & Little Boy).

You T old Me - introduction - 9

1. You told me

An introduction

In the same way that the storyteller doesn’t exist without the story the methodology and subject-matter of research in this dissertation project are inseparable. In this process I am striving to explore constructions of narratives of life stories and stories about the making of art. Th e means for this examination rhymes with the fi eld of investigation: I am telling stories and at the same time experimenting with the forms and strate- gies to create such stories within the context of contemporary art. Or even more simply: I want to bring narratives into art, but also, I want to bring up narratives from their existence in the undercurrents of art.

You Told Me − the three words can be seen as the morphemes of my dissertation project. Th ree words and two persons are involved.

Th e “You” is not a complete stranger, since “Me” is addressing “You” in the past tense. A continuation is also implied; you told me something.

Th is something may be a story, or may be a fact. Depending on which syllable the emphasis is placed on, the three words may indicate other plausible implications: for instance, that the initial telling of something created a binding relation, that the telling was a performative act.

Th is dissertation consists of an introductory text, three text essays, and fi ve video works.

Th e videos are grounded in the You Told Me-

1. Three video biographies (Who is Zdenko Bužek?, Who is Eva Quintas?,Who is Dimitris Hou-

liarakis?) and two video essays (Kumiko, Johnnie Walker & the Cute, Madame & Little Boy).

You T old Me - introduction - 10

research and academic research within the humanities.

During this work I have been curious about some of the many threads that I disco- vered in the biographical weaves of the individuals, and also how these threads sometimes have been interwoven.

One can consider You Told Me as a sort of phenomenological study connected with a certain form of collecting. Collecting – the bringing together, arranging and presenting of “things” from very diverse realms in a “room”– can historically be linked to three diff erent spaces: the cabinet of curiosity, the art space and the fi lmic room. Th e cabinet of curiosity does not primarily have to assemble marvelous, bizarre or sensational things, rather “curiosity” in this context (connected with the art space and the fi lmic room) means to observe and care about details, and curiosity can be seen as an act of displacement of the self from itself (Sina Najafi ).

Th e “things” collected in “the room” of this dissertation may be po- litical discourses, texts, refl ections, experiences, stories, places, events, phenomena…. To mention some of the more signifi cant things (wit- hout hierarchy or chronology): Yugoslavian conceptual art; Korean fi lm history; cuteness as an aesthetic category (and its political implica- tions); the role of soft power; the role of voice-over, relations between word and action: relations betweens words, myths, and propaganda;

the meaning of names and naming; the Japanese occupation of Korea;

Kim Jong Il’s role in North Korean fi lm industry; the cities of Zagreb, Rijeka, Tokyo and Harbin; the fi lm city outside Pyongyang and the Nike Missile Site outside San Francisco.

However, this dissertation does not only trust in presentation and representation of conversation, storytelling, archive studies, and col- lecting as methods. Besides narration of a process it consists of argu- mentation. To discuss the meaning of diff erent forms of narration in art is for me crucial not in the least from the perspective of artistic research. Th e aim of making the process transparent, of discussing met- hods and contextualizing and observing the artistic process, is closely linked to these narratives. Th e stories in focus in this dissertation text are the stories behind and within an artwork. I call them work stories

3. For instance, research in the national fi lm archives in Tokyo and Seoul was crucial for the development of my two video essays.

4. Sina Najafi , “Cut the Bean: Curiosity and Research in the Pages of Cabinet Magazine” in What is Research in the Visual Arts?: Obsession, Archive, Encounter, eds. Michael Ann Holly &

Marquard Smith, Clark Studies in the Visual Arts 2009.

situation and the diff erent resonances of the act and context of utte- rance. Th e fundaments for the works are meetings, conversations, and storytelling, activities that are closely linked to the biographical genre, but also – as I will argue – to the dissemination of artworks.

Each of the video works has an independent status as artwork and has been shown in exhibitions and fi lm festivals without the company of the text essays and this theoretical introduction. However, in this context they are inscribed in (but hopefully not framed and restricted by) another system of meaning, institutionally (the University) and epistemologically. Th e last two works (the video essays) were created within the framework of my PhD-studies and are, of course, permea- ted by the epistemological process of a dissertation work, although this most often is an unknown factor when the works are shown in exhibi- tions and movie theaters.

As a biographer I have in this project traveled in the footsteps of fi lms and staged diff erent memory acts together with the “biographi- zed.” Th e method of repetition I use coincides with and is inspired by a method in one of Chris Marker’s work: in his video essay Sans soleil he calls it pilgrimage – a method through which he is able to bring forth many of his key motifs: the return, the search, multiple identities, the connections of memory, the situations and the events when the pasts manifest themselves in the presence.

In my Who is...? project (which forms the background and staring point for this project) I reenact small fragments of a person’s life story together with the subject. Th e methods are traveling to certain places, meeting certain people and asking the main character to “act”

accor- ding to my manuscript. While in the Who is...? series I am working with people that I already know, I seek out people in the video essays that I have learned of through fi lm (Th e Koumiko Mystery by Chris Marker) and through media (the story of Choi Eun-hee). In these works the meetings and conversations with the biographized are crucial as well as the reenactment of certain questions in earlier works by other artists (Th e Koumiko Mystery). Here the conducted research of archives, fi lms, and documents and the traveling has a lot in common with journalistic

2. Acting, in this case, has a very reduced meaning. It rather means to place oneself in a certain situation; to situate oneself in an emblematic relation to places and people.

research and academic research within the humanities.

During this work I have been curious about some of the many threads that I disco- vered in the biographical weaves of the individuals, and also how these threads sometimes have been interwoven.

One can consider You Told Me as a sort of phenomenological study connected with a certain form of collecting. Collecting – the bringing together, arranging and presenting of “things” from very diverse realms in a “room”– can historically be linked to three diff erent spaces: the cabinet of curiosity, the art space and the fi lmic room. Th e cabinet of curiosity does not primarily have to assemble marvelous, bizarre or sensational things, rather “curiosity” in this context (connected with the art space and the fi lmic room) means to observe and care about details, and curiosity can be seen as an act of displacement of the self from itself (Sina Najafi ).

Th e “things” collected in “the room” of this dissertation may be po- litical discourses, texts, refl ections, experiences, stories, places, events, phenomena…. To mention some of the more signifi cant things (wit- hout hierarchy or chronology): Yugoslavian conceptual art; Korean fi lm history; cuteness as an aesthetic category (and its political implica- tions); the role of soft power; the role of voice-over, relations between word and action: relations betweens words, myths, and propaganda;

the meaning of names and naming; the Japanese occupation of Korea;

Kim Jong Il’s role in North Korean fi lm industry; the cities of Zagreb, Rijeka, Tokyo and Harbin; the fi lm city outside Pyongyang and the Nike Missile Site outside San Francisco.

However, this dissertation does not only trust in presentation and representation of conversation, storytelling, archive studies, and col- lecting as methods. Besides narration of a process it consists of argu- mentation. To discuss the meaning of diff erent forms of narration in art is for me crucial not in the least from the perspective of artistic research. Th e aim of making the process transparent, of discussing met- hods and contextualizing and observing the artistic process, is closely linked to these narratives. Th e stories in focus in this dissertation text are the stories behind and within an artwork. I call them work stories

3. For instance, research in the national fi lm archives in Tokyo and Seoul was crucial for the development of my two video essays.

4. Sina Najafi , “Cut the Bean: Curiosity and Research in the Pages of Cabinet Magazine” in What is Research in the Visual Arts?: Obsession, Archive, Encounter, eds. Michael Ann Holly &

Marquard Smith, Clark Studies in the Visual Arts 2009.

situation and the diff erent resonances of the act and context of utte- rance. Th e fundaments for the works are meetings, conversations, and storytelling, activities that are closely linked to the biographical genre, but also – as I will argue – to the dissemination of artworks.

Each of the video works has an independent status as artwork and has been shown in exhibitions and fi lm festivals without the company of the text essays and this theoretical introduction. However, in this context they are inscribed in (but hopefully not framed and restricted by) another system of meaning, institutionally (the University) and epistemologically. Th e last two works (the video essays) were created within the framework of my PhD-studies and are, of course, permea- ted by the epistemological process of a dissertation work, although this most often is an unknown factor when the works are shown in exhibi- tions and movie theaters.

As a biographer I have in this project traveled in the footsteps of fi lms and staged diff erent memory acts together with the “biographi- zed.” Th e method of repetition I use coincides with and is inspired by a method in one of Chris Marker’s work: in his video essay Sans soleil he calls it pilgrimage – a method through which he is able to bring forth many of his key motifs: the return, the search, multiple identities, the connections of memory, the situations and the events when the pasts manifest themselves in the presence.

In my Who is...? project (which forms the background and staring point for this project) I reenact small fragments of a person’s life story together with the subject. Th e methods are traveling to certain places, meeting certain people and asking the main character to “act”

accor- ding to my manuscript. While in the Who is...? series I am working with people that I already know, I seek out people in the video essays that I have learned of through fi lm (Th e Koumiko Mystery by Chris Marker) and through media (the story of Choi Eun-hee). In these works the meetings and conversations with the biographized are crucial as well as the reenactment of certain questions in earlier works by other artists (Th e Koumiko Mystery). Here the conducted research of archives, fi lms, and documents and the traveling has a lot in common with journalistic

2. Acting, in this case, has a very reduced meaning. It rather means to place oneself in a certain

situation; to situate oneself in an emblematic relation to places and people.

You T old Me - introduction - 11

research and academic research within the humanities.

During this work I have been curious about some of the many threads that I disco- vered in the biographical weaves of the individuals, and also how these threads sometimes have been interwoven.

One can consider You Told Me as a sort of phenomenological study connected with a certain form of collecting. Collecting – the bringing together, arranging and presenting of “things” from very diverse realms in a “room”– can historically be linked to three diff erent spaces: the cabinet of curiosity, the art space and the fi lmic room. Th e cabinet of curiosity does not primarily have to assemble marvelous, bizarre or sensational things, rather “curiosity” in this context (connected with the art space and the fi lmic room) means to observe and care about details, and curiosity can be seen as an act of displacement of the self from itself (Sina Najafi ).

Th e “things” collected in “the room” of this dissertation may be po- litical discourses, texts, refl ections, experiences, stories, places, events, phenomena…. To mention some of the more signifi cant things (wit- hout hierarchy or chronology): Yugoslavian conceptual art; Korean fi lm history; cuteness as an aesthetic category (and its political implica- tions); the role of soft power; the role of voice-over, relations between word and action: relations betweens words, myths, and propaganda;

the meaning of names and naming; the Japanese occupation of Korea;

Kim Jong Il’s role in North Korean fi lm industry; the cities of Zagreb, Rijeka, Tokyo and Harbin; the fi lm city outside Pyongyang and the Nike Missile Site outside San Francisco.

However, this dissertation does not only trust in presentation and representation of conversation, storytelling, archive studies, and col- lecting as methods. Besides narration of a process it consists of argu- mentation. To discuss the meaning of diff erent forms of narration in art is for me crucial not in the least from the perspective of artistic research. Th e aim of making the process transparent, of discussing met- hods and contextualizing and observing the artistic process, is closely linked to these narratives. Th e stories in focus in this dissertation text are the stories behind and within an artwork. I call them work stories

3. For instance, research in the national fi lm archives in Tokyo and Seoul was crucial for the development of my two video essays.

4. Sina Najafi , “Cut the Bean: Curiosity and Research in the Pages of Cabinet Magazine” in What is Research in the Visual Arts?: Obsession, Archive, Encounter, eds. Michael Ann Holly &

Marquard Smith, Clark Studies in the Visual Arts 2009.

situation and the diff erent resonances of the act and context of utte- rance. Th e fundaments for the works are meetings, conversations, and storytelling, activities that are closely linked to the biographical genre, but also – as I will argue – to the dissemination of artworks.

Each of the video works has an independent status as artwork and has been shown in exhibitions and fi lm festivals without the company of the text essays and this theoretical introduction. However, in this context they are inscribed in (but hopefully not framed and restricted by) another system of meaning, institutionally (the University) and epistemologically. Th e last two works (the video essays) were created within the framework of my PhD-studies and are, of course, permea- ted by the epistemological process of a dissertation work, although this most often is an unknown factor when the works are shown in exhibi- tions and movie theaters.

As a biographer I have in this project traveled in the footsteps of fi lms and staged diff erent memory acts together with the “biographi- zed.” Th e method of repetition I use coincides with and is inspired by a method in one of Chris Marker’s work: in his video essay Sans soleil he calls it pilgrimage – a method through which he is able to bring forth many of his key motifs: the return, the search, multiple identities, the connections of memory, the situations and the events when the pasts manifest themselves in the presence.

In my Who is...? project (which forms the background and staring point for this project) I reenact small fragments of a person’s life story together with the subject. Th e methods are traveling to certain places, meeting certain people and asking the main character to “act”

accor- ding to my manuscript. While in the Who is...? series I am working with people that I already know, I seek out people in the video essays that I have learned of through fi lm (Th e Koumiko Mystery by Chris Marker) and through media (the story of Choi Eun-hee). In these works the meetings and conversations with the biographized are crucial as well as the reenactment of certain questions in earlier works by other artists (Th e Koumiko Mystery). Here the conducted research of archives, fi lms, and documents and the traveling has a lot in common with journalistic

2. Acting, in this case, has a very reduced meaning. It rather means to place oneself in a certain situation; to situate oneself in an emblematic relation to places and people.

research and academic research within the humanities.

During this work I have been curious about some of the many threads that I disco- vered in the biographical weaves of the individuals, and also how these threads sometimes have been interwoven.

One can consider You Told Me as a sort of phenomenological study connected with a certain form of collecting. Collecting – the bringing together, arranging and presenting of “things” from very diverse realms in a “room”– can historically be linked to three diff erent spaces: the cabinet of curiosity, the art space and the fi lmic room. Th e cabinet of curiosity does not primarily have to assemble marvelous, bizarre or sensational things, rather “curiosity” in this context (connected with the art space and the fi lmic room) means to observe and care about details, and curiosity can be seen as an act of displacement of the self from itself (Sina Najafi ).

Th e “things” collected in “the room” of this dissertation may be po- litical discourses, texts, refl ections, experiences, stories, places, events, phenomena…. To mention some of the more signifi cant things (wit- hout hierarchy or chronology): Yugoslavian conceptual art; Korean fi lm history; cuteness as an aesthetic category (and its political implica- tions); the role of soft power; the role of voice-over, relations between word and action: relations betweens words, myths, and propaganda;

the meaning of names and naming; the Japanese occupation of Korea;

Kim Jong Il’s role in North Korean fi lm industry; the cities of Zagreb, Rijeka, Tokyo and Harbin; the fi lm city outside Pyongyang and the Nike Missile Site outside San Francisco.

However, this dissertation does not only trust in presentation and representation of conversation, storytelling, archive studies, and col- lecting as methods. Besides narration of a process it consists of argu- mentation. To discuss the meaning of diff erent forms of narration in art is for me crucial not in the least from the perspective of artistic research. Th e aim of making the process transparent, of discussing met- hods and contextualizing and observing the artistic process, is closely linked to these narratives. Th e stories in focus in this dissertation text are the stories behind and within an artwork. I call them work stories

3. For instance, research in the national fi lm archives in Tokyo and Seoul was crucial for the development of my two video essays.

4. Sina Najafi , “Cut the Bean: Curiosity and Research in the Pages of Cabinet Magazine” in What is Research in the Visual Arts?: Obsession, Archive, Encounter, eds. Michael Ann Holly &

Marquard Smith, Clark Studies in the Visual Arts 2009.

situation and the diff erent resonances of the act and context of utte- rance. Th e fundaments for the works are meetings, conversations, and storytelling, activities that are closely linked to the biographical genre, but also – as I will argue – to the dissemination of artworks.

Each of the video works has an independent status as artwork and has been shown in exhibitions and fi lm festivals without the company of the text essays and this theoretical introduction. However, in this context they are inscribed in (but hopefully not framed and restricted by) another system of meaning, institutionally (the University) and epistemologically. Th e last two works (the video essays) were created within the framework of my PhD-studies and are, of course, permea- ted by the epistemological process of a dissertation work, although this most often is an unknown factor when the works are shown in exhibi- tions and movie theaters.

As a biographer I have in this project traveled in the footsteps of fi lms and staged diff erent memory acts together with the “biographi- zed.” Th e method of repetition I use coincides with and is inspired by a method in one of Chris Marker’s work: in his video essay Sans soleil he calls it pilgrimage – a method through which he is able to bring forth many of his key motifs: the return, the search, multiple identities, the connections of memory, the situations and the events when the pasts manifest themselves in the presence.

In my Who is...? project (which forms the background and staring point for this project) I reenact small fragments of a person’s life story together with the subject. Th e methods are traveling to certain places, meeting certain people and asking the main character to “act”

accor- ding to my manuscript. While in the Who is...? series I am working with people that I already know, I seek out people in the video essays that I have learned of through fi lm (Th e Koumiko Mystery by Chris Marker) and through media (the story of Choi Eun-hee). In these works the meetings and conversations with the biographized are crucial as well as the reenactment of certain questions in earlier works by other artists (Th e Koumiko Mystery). Here the conducted research of archives, fi lms, and documents and the traveling has a lot in common with journalistic

2. Acting, in this case, has a very reduced meaning. It rather means to place oneself in a certain

situation; to situate oneself in an emblematic relation to places and people.

You T old Me - introduction - 12

[verkberättelser].

A work story is, to use a very condensed descrip- tion, a written or oral narrative about the forming of materials, im- material units, situations, relations and social practices that is, or leads to, an artwork. Th e concept emphasizes the process and the methods of art, giving a value to the account of the sequence of makings, but also taking into account the considerations (theoretical and practical) and the biographical elements. In conceptual art, the work story is not only crucial for the understanding of the work – the very order of the sequence of the making and the action have symbolic, metaphorical, metonymical, political and even epistemological meanings and cannot be excluded from the presentation or the physical form of the work.

In this text I don’t strive to create a coherent defi nition of the term/

concept work story, but rather to propose and examine diff erent forms, functions and possibilities. Basically I consider the work story to be an integral part of an artwork. Firstly, it is a sequence of doings, a latent story of the process that can be deducted or extracted from any artwork, regardless of media. Secondly, as a meta-activity, it is perfor- mative and during the contingent and shifting orbit of its social exis- tence, the work story aggregates meaning that becomes a part of the artwork to which the story refers. As an emplotment of experience (Paul Ricœur)

it gives the storyteller a sense of continuation, coherence, connection and meaning. Here lies one of the many resemblances with the functions of the narratives of life stories. Furthermore, work stories can merge with life stories to make an inseparable unit.

In this text, work stories are also connected to life stories, to post- construction [efterkonstruktion] and to reenactment. But while the tel- ling and dissemination of a work story is basically a linguistic activity, the center of gravity in reenactment lies in action, even though action [handling] is implied in all narratives, as discussed in this dissertation (Hannah Arendt).

Besides being a narrative of an account of sequen- ces of doings and considerations, a work story can function as an in- struction, or a score, which was the term used in Fluxus art.

5. “Work story” is a translation of the Swedish term I fi rst started to use: “verkberättelse”. The fi rst published version of the term was “story of a work” in Magnus Bärtås, “Talk Talk” in Geist,

“Method”, No. 11, 12, 14 2007–2008.

6. See, for instance, Paul Ricœur, Time and Narrative, Vol 1, The University of Chicago Press 1984.

7. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, The University of Chicago Press 1998 (originally pu- blished1958).

In an extended form, a work story disseminates meaning rather than capturing it. Th is is the essayistic form of work story to which I have devoted myself in this dissertation – an “extended work story.”

Th e essayistic mode permits the writer/fi lmmaker to wander off and touch upon subjects as if in passing, and at the same time, paradoxical- ly, give them careful attention, reproducing their neglected genealogy and destiny in the detailed materiality of the work story. Th e essay is the study of detail, the unnecessary detail: a detail that is supposed to be ignored in documentary reporting about an event.

As indicated above I believe life stories and work stories have a lot in common. Th ey most often seem to share the same (basically herme- neutical) statements that strive to situate the self: “Th is is where I come from,” “Th is is who I am,” and “Th is is where I am going.”

Storytel- ling adds to or restricts the meaning of the interpretation of the work/

life; it can simultaneously frame and disseminate meaning. Directed to diff erent audiences, it may have diff erent form and content, and from a temporal perspective, it will change and transform. As an activity performed in retrospect, the story functions as a reconstruction after the fact, a “post-construction” as I like to call it. It stages the work/life and emphasizes certain aspects, and as in the case of all narratives, what is excluded is as important as what is included.

Post-construction is a tool of the work story and as such has di- mensions of self- refl exivity, self-alienation, mythologization while also refl ecting the contingent nature of work stories. Post-construction as a narrative is also directed at ourselves; as acts of promises or as invoca- tions. Th e two directions – to others and to ourselves – share the ethical dimension, and are implied in the last of the hermeneutical statements:

“Th is is where I am going.” In this text (chapter 3) I will also discuss the collectiveness of the process of post-construction, for instance with the example of Gordon Matta-Clark’s work Reality Properties: Fake Estates (a work story examined by Jeff rey Kastner, Sina Najafi and Frances Richard).

Th e title of this text (You Told Me) refers not only to relations and social practice between humans, but also to interrelations between the narrator, the viewer, images, and the artist. As Harun Farocki has said,

8. I am indebted to Irina Sandomirskaja for this description of essayism.

9. Any artwork can be said to host the same temporality: “Someone did this. This is the presence of this work in this room. You may try it out for yourself.”

[verkberättelser].

A work story is, to use a very condensed descrip- tion, a written or oral narrative about the forming of materials, im- material units, situations, relations and social practices that is, or leads to, an artwork. Th e concept emphasizes the process and the methods of art, giving a value to the account of the sequence of makings, but also taking into account the considerations (theoretical and practical) and the biographical elements. In conceptual art, the work story is not only crucial for the understanding of the work – the very order of the sequence of the making and the action have symbolic, metaphorical, metonymical, political and even epistemological meanings and cannot be excluded from the presentation or the physical form of the work.

In this text I don’t strive to create a coherent defi nition of the term/

concept work story, but rather to propose and examine diff erent forms, functions and possibilities. Basically I consider the work story to be an integral part of an artwork. Firstly, it is a sequence of doings, a latent story of the process that can be deducted or extracted from any artwork, regardless of media. Secondly, as a meta-activity, it is perfor- mative and during the contingent and shifting orbit of its social exis- tence, the work story aggregates meaning that becomes a part of the artwork to which the story refers. As an emplotment of experience (Paul Ricœur)

it gives the storyteller a sense of continuation, coherence, connection and meaning. Here lies one of the many resemblances with the functions of the narratives of life stories. Furthermore, work stories can merge with life stories to make an inseparable unit.

In this text, work stories are also connected to life stories, to post- construction [efterkonstruktion] and to reenactment. But while the tel- ling and dissemination of a work story is basically a linguistic activity, the center of gravity in reenactment lies in action, even though action [handling] is implied in all narratives, as discussed in this dissertation (Hannah Arendt).

Besides being a narrative of an account of sequen- ces of doings and considerations, a work story can function as an in- struction, or a score, which was the term used in Fluxus art.

5. “Work story” is a translation of the Swedish term I fi rst started to use: “verkberättelse”. The fi rst published version of the term was “story of a work” in Magnus Bärtås, “Talk Talk” in Geist,

“Method”, No. 11, 12, 14 2007–2008.

6. See, for instance, Paul Ricœur, Time and Narrative, Vol 1, The University of Chicago Press 1984.

7. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, The University of Chicago Press 1998 (originally pu- blished1958).

In an extended form, a work story disseminates meaning rather than capturing it. Th is is the essayistic form of work story to which I have devoted myself in this dissertation – an “extended work story.”

Th e essayistic mode permits the writer/fi lmmaker to wander off and touch upon subjects as if in passing, and at the same time, paradoxical- ly, give them careful attention, reproducing their neglected genealogy and destiny in the detailed materiality of the work story. Th e essay is the study of detail, the unnecessary detail: a detail that is supposed to be ignored in documentary reporting about an event.

As indicated above I believe life stories and work stories have a lot in common. Th ey most often seem to share the same (basically herme- neutical) statements that strive to situate the self: “Th is is where I come from,” “Th is is who I am,” and “Th is is where I am going.”

Storytel- ling adds to or restricts the meaning of the interpretation of the work/

life; it can simultaneously frame and disseminate meaning. Directed to diff erent audiences, it may have diff erent form and content, and from a temporal perspective, it will change and transform. As an activity performed in retrospect, the story functions as a reconstruction after the fact, a “post-construction” as I like to call it. It stages the work/life and emphasizes certain aspects, and as in the case of all narratives, what is excluded is as important as what is included.

Post-construction is a tool of the work story and as such has di- mensions of self- refl exivity, self-alienation, mythologization while also refl ecting the contingent nature of work stories. Post-construction as a narrative is also directed at ourselves; as acts of promises or as invoca- tions. Th e two directions – to others and to ourselves – share the ethical dimension, and are implied in the last of the hermeneutical statements:

“Th is is where I am going.” In this text (chapter 3) I will also discuss the collectiveness of the process of post-construction, for instance with the example of Gordon Matta-Clark’s work Reality Properties: Fake Estates (a work story examined by Jeff rey Kastner, Sina Najafi and Frances Richard).

Th e title of this text (You Told Me) refers not only to relations and social practice between humans, but also to interrelations between the narrator, the viewer, images, and the artist. As Harun Farocki has said,

8. I am indebted to Irina Sandomirskaja for this description of essayism.

9. Any artwork can be said to host the same temporality: “Someone did this. This is the presence

of this work in this room. You may try it out for yourself.”

You T old Me - introduction - 13

[verkberättelser].

A work story is, to use a very condensed descrip- tion, a written or oral narrative about the forming of materials, im- material units, situations, relations and social practices that is, or leads to, an artwork. Th e concept emphasizes the process and the methods of art, giving a value to the account of the sequence of makings, but also taking into account the considerations (theoretical and practical) and the biographical elements. In conceptual art, the work story is not only crucial for the understanding of the work – the very order of the sequence of the making and the action have symbolic, metaphorical, metonymical, political and even epistemological meanings and cannot be excluded from the presentation or the physical form of the work.

In this text I don’t strive to create a coherent defi nition of the term/

concept work story, but rather to propose and examine diff erent forms, functions and possibilities. Basically I consider the work story to be an integral part of an artwork. Firstly, it is a sequence of doings, a latent story of the process that can be deducted or extracted from any artwork, regardless of media. Secondly, as a meta-activity, it is perfor- mative and during the contingent and shifting orbit of its social exis- tence, the work story aggregates meaning that becomes a part of the artwork to which the story refers. As an emplotment of experience (Paul Ricœur)

it gives the storyteller a sense of continuation, coherence, connection and meaning. Here lies one of the many resemblances with the functions of the narratives of life stories. Furthermore, work stories can merge with life stories to make an inseparable unit.

In this text, work stories are also connected to life stories, to post- construction [efterkonstruktion] and to reenactment. But while the tel- ling and dissemination of a work story is basically a linguistic activity, the center of gravity in reenactment lies in action, even though action [handling] is implied in all narratives, as discussed in this dissertation (Hannah Arendt).

Besides being a narrative of an account of sequen- ces of doings and considerations, a work story can function as an in- struction, or a score, which was the term used in Fluxus art.

5. “Work story” is a translation of the Swedish term I fi rst started to use: “verkberättelse”. The fi rst published version of the term was “story of a work” in Magnus Bärtås, “Talk Talk” in Geist,

“Method”, No. 11, 12, 14 2007–2008.

6. See, for instance, Paul Ricœur, Time and Narrative, Vol 1, The University of Chicago Press 1984.

7. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, The University of Chicago Press 1998 (originally pu- blished1958).

In an extended form, a work story disseminates meaning rather than capturing it. Th is is the essayistic form of work story to which I have devoted myself in this dissertation – an “extended work story.”

Th e essayistic mode permits the writer/fi lmmaker to wander off and touch upon subjects as if in passing, and at the same time, paradoxical- ly, give them careful attention, reproducing their neglected genealogy and destiny in the detailed materiality of the work story. Th e essay is the study of detail, the unnecessary detail: a detail that is supposed to be ignored in documentary reporting about an event.

As indicated above I believe life stories and work stories have a lot in common. Th ey most often seem to share the same (basically herme- neutical) statements that strive to situate the self: “Th is is where I come from,” “Th is is who I am,” and “Th is is where I am going.”

Storytel- ling adds to or restricts the meaning of the interpretation of the work/

life; it can simultaneously frame and disseminate meaning. Directed to diff erent audiences, it may have diff erent form and content, and from a temporal perspective, it will change and transform. As an activity performed in retrospect, the story functions as a reconstruction after the fact, a “post-construction” as I like to call it. It stages the work/life and emphasizes certain aspects, and as in the case of all narratives, what is excluded is as important as what is included.

Post-construction is a tool of the work story and as such has di- mensions of self- refl exivity, self-alienation, mythologization while also refl ecting the contingent nature of work stories. Post-construction as a narrative is also directed at ourselves; as acts of promises or as invoca- tions. Th e two directions – to others and to ourselves – share the ethical dimension, and are implied in the last of the hermeneutical statements:

“Th is is where I am going.” In this text (chapter 3) I will also discuss the collectiveness of the process of post-construction, for instance with the example of Gordon Matta-Clark’s work Reality Properties: Fake Estates (a work story examined by Jeff rey Kastner, Sina Najafi and Frances Richard).

Th e title of this text (You Told Me) refers not only to relations and social practice between humans, but also to interrelations between the narrator, the viewer, images, and the artist. As Harun Farocki has said,

8. I am indebted to Irina Sandomirskaja for this description of essayism.

9. Any artwork can be said to host the same temporality: “Someone did this. This is the presence of this work in this room. You may try it out for yourself.”

[verkberättelser].

A work story is, to use a very condensed descrip- tion, a written or oral narrative about the forming of materials, im- material units, situations, relations and social practices that is, or leads to, an artwork. Th e concept emphasizes the process and the methods of art, giving a value to the account of the sequence of makings, but also taking into account the considerations (theoretical and practical) and the biographical elements. In conceptual art, the work story is not only crucial for the understanding of the work – the very order of the sequence of the making and the action have symbolic, metaphorical, metonymical, political and even epistemological meanings and cannot be excluded from the presentation or the physical form of the work.

In this text I don’t strive to create a coherent defi nition of the term/

concept work story, but rather to propose and examine diff erent forms, functions and possibilities. Basically I consider the work story to be an integral part of an artwork. Firstly, it is a sequence of doings, a latent story of the process that can be deducted or extracted from any artwork, regardless of media. Secondly, as a meta-activity, it is perfor- mative and during the contingent and shifting orbit of its social exis- tence, the work story aggregates meaning that becomes a part of the artwork to which the story refers. As an emplotment of experience (Paul Ricœur)

it gives the storyteller a sense of continuation, coherence, connection and meaning. Here lies one of the many resemblances with the functions of the narratives of life stories. Furthermore, work stories can merge with life stories to make an inseparable unit.

In this text, work stories are also connected to life stories, to post- construction [efterkonstruktion] and to reenactment. But while the tel- ling and dissemination of a work story is basically a linguistic activity, the center of gravity in reenactment lies in action, even though action [handling] is implied in all narratives, as discussed in this dissertation (Hannah Arendt).

Besides being a narrative of an account of sequen- ces of doings and considerations, a work story can function as an in- struction, or a score, which was the term used in Fluxus art.

5. “Work story” is a translation of the Swedish term I fi rst started to use: “verkberättelse”. The fi rst published version of the term was “story of a work” in Magnus Bärtås, “Talk Talk” in Geist,

“Method”, No. 11, 12, 14 2007–2008.

6. See, for instance, Paul Ricœur, Time and Narrative, Vol 1, The University of Chicago Press 1984.

7. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, The University of Chicago Press 1998 (originally pu- blished1958).

In an extended form, a work story disseminates meaning rather than capturing it. Th is is the essayistic form of work story to which I have devoted myself in this dissertation – an “extended work story.”

Th e essayistic mode permits the writer/fi lmmaker to wander off and touch upon subjects as if in passing, and at the same time, paradoxical- ly, give them careful attention, reproducing their neglected genealogy and destiny in the detailed materiality of the work story. Th e essay is the study of detail, the unnecessary detail: a detail that is supposed to be ignored in documentary reporting about an event.

As indicated above I believe life stories and work stories have a lot in common. Th ey most often seem to share the same (basically herme- neutical) statements that strive to situate the self: “Th is is where I come from,” “Th is is who I am,” and “Th is is where I am going.”

Storytel- ling adds to or restricts the meaning of the interpretation of the work/

life; it can simultaneously frame and disseminate meaning. Directed to diff erent audiences, it may have diff erent form and content, and from a temporal perspective, it will change and transform. As an activity performed in retrospect, the story functions as a reconstruction after the fact, a “post-construction” as I like to call it. It stages the work/life and emphasizes certain aspects, and as in the case of all narratives, what is excluded is as important as what is included.

Post-construction is a tool of the work story and as such has di- mensions of self- refl exivity, self-alienation, mythologization while also refl ecting the contingent nature of work stories. Post-construction as a narrative is also directed at ourselves; as acts of promises or as invoca- tions. Th e two directions – to others and to ourselves – share the ethical dimension, and are implied in the last of the hermeneutical statements:

“Th is is where I am going.” In this text (chapter 3) I will also discuss the collectiveness of the process of post-construction, for instance with the example of Gordon Matta-Clark’s work Reality Properties: Fake Estates (a work story examined by Jeff rey Kastner, Sina Najafi and Frances Richard).

Th e title of this text (You Told Me) refers not only to relations and social practice between humans, but also to interrelations between the narrator, the viewer, images, and the artist. As Harun Farocki has said,

8. I am indebted to Irina Sandomirskaja for this description of essayism.

9. Any artwork can be said to host the same temporality: “Someone did this. This is the presence

of this work in this room. You may try it out for yourself.”

You T old Me - introduction - 14

the making of a video essay means talking and listening to images. In the practice of the video essay – a practice that to a higher degree than traditional conceptual art has a reciprocal relation to the (fi lmed) ma- terial – the narration is refl ects and comments on its own process: its practical, relational, and ethical aspects. Th us, in the video essay, the work story is present to diff erent degrees, though often fragmented or embedded. Here it exists in a polyphonic situation. It is a story among multiple narratives.

In this dissertation some questions refl ect and establish diff erent stages of contextualization and framing of my work: fi rst, as an ob- servation and analysis of the function and meaning of narration in contemporary art and secondly, as an examination of possible roles, methods, actions, and narrative functions in a genre or artistic fi eld (the video essay). And thirdly, the question arises as to how these nar- ratives stage, situate, and represent an individual’s place and role in a societal text and as a part of history.

During the practical and refl ective theoretical work with the video essay, I distinguished fi ve elements or instances of the video essay: the subject matter, the images (the representation),

the artist/author, the narrative (the text), and the narrator/voice. In most documentary fi lms the existence and the lack of natural correspondence between these entities are dissolved or denied – I rather wanted to expose them as separate units. I asked myself: What alternative roles can be established between these instances, for example, by negotiation and transference between them?

Here I also encountered the confl ict between the essay as form and the function of a story. Th e essay can contain storytelling, but is the narrative drive in a story served by essayistic elements? Does not the meandering structure of the essay distract and distort the functionality or effi ciency (and unifying tendency) of the narrative? A “good story”

has a defi ned shape, like a nicely sculpted mental object, whereas the essay is characterized by “/…/ an amoeba-like versatility often held together by little more than the author’s voice.”

Th is confl ict between the effi ciency of narratives and the amorphous essay became one of the

10. Even though my work is strongly concerned with the relation between word and action, I decided to not to involve a semiotic analysis in this PhD thesis.

11. Reda Bensmaia, The Barthes Effect: The Essay as Refl ective Text, The University of Min- nesota Press 1987, ix.

points of examination in this project.

Besides the many subjects I came across in my research of the life stories of the characters in my videos – many of them are treated in my

“extended work stories” in this book – some common questions and subjects bind the video and text works together and are emphasized at the end of this introductory text: the role of reenactment, the function of voice-over and the meaning of names. Th ese themes are here theo- rized by a clustering of observations and considerations, together with examples from my practice, rather then an analytical exegesis of the history and meaning of these terms.

Although I am aiming in this dissertation to look beyond the im- pulse to make art, there is a level of desire in this work that should be acknowledged. Something in this work is somehow more impelling than formal questions (although I disregard the division between form and content). It might be self-evident but it has to be emphasized that it is the narrative urge and desire – the impulse to tell stories – that is the driving force behind the works in this dissertation. Th e biographies of Zdenko Bužek, Kumiko Muraoka, Johnnie Walker and Choi Eun- hee are the axes that these works revolve around. Th eir stories have in diff erent ways been mediated by themselves and others (in installa- tions, documentaries, fi ction, articles, and memoirs). My task became to fi nd interconnections, correspondences, openings, patterns, and fi - gures by revisiting and retelling “their” stories and to fi nd connections with social, political, and aesthetic issues in the past and the present.

Th at means trying to fi nd a place in between collective and personal memory.

About the content and structure

It may be needless to say, but in this dissertation project these questions and the conducted research have not been developed and performed in a strictly linear or analytical way. It has been a process of learning by doing and observing what had already been done. Several aspects of this research process came about in an unexpected way. Th e underlying wish was to expand and deepen a critical, refl exive practice. I raised questions but basically wanted to “answer” the questions in and th-

12. Zdenko Bužek exhibited “himself” in the exhibition Biography (in Zagreb, 2001). In the case of Kumiko Muraoka I got in contact with her life story through the work of Chris Marker. And Johnnie Walker’s and Choi Eun-hee’s life stories automatically connected my research with other artists:

Haruki Murakami and Shin Sang-ok.

the making of a video essay means talking and listening to images. In the practice of the video essay – a practice that to a higher degree than traditional conceptual art has a reciprocal relation to the (fi lmed) ma- terial – the narration is refl ects and comments on its own process: its practical, relational, and ethical aspects. Th us, in the video essay, the work story is present to diff erent degrees, though often fragmented or embedded. Here it exists in a polyphonic situation. It is a story among multiple narratives.

In this dissertation some questions refl ect and establish diff erent stages of contextualization and framing of my work: fi rst, as an ob- servation and analysis of the function and meaning of narration in contemporary art and secondly, as an examination of possible roles, methods, actions, and narrative functions in a genre or artistic fi eld (the video essay). And thirdly, the question arises as to how these nar- ratives stage, situate, and represent an individual’s place and role in a societal text and as a part of history.

During the practical and refl ective theoretical work with the video essay, I distinguished fi ve elements or instances of the video essay: the subject matter, the images (the representation),

the artist/author, the narrative (the text), and the narrator/voice. In most documentary fi lms the existence and the lack of natural correspondence between these entities are dissolved or denied – I rather wanted to expose them as separate units. I asked myself: What alternative roles can be established between these instances, for example, by negotiation and transference between them?

Here I also encountered the confl ict between the essay as form and the function of a story. Th e essay can contain storytelling, but is the narrative drive in a story served by essayistic elements? Does not the meandering structure of the essay distract and distort the functionality or effi ciency (and unifying tendency) of the narrative? A “good story”

has a defi ned shape, like a nicely sculpted mental object, whereas the essay is characterized by “/…/ an amoeba-like versatility often held together by little more than the author’s voice.”

Th is confl ict between the effi ciency of narratives and the amorphous essay became one of the

10. Even though my work is strongly concerned with the relation between word and action, I decided to not to involve a semiotic analysis in this PhD thesis.

11. Reda Bensmaia, The Barthes Effect: The Essay as Refl ective Text, The University of Min- nesota Press 1987, ix.

points of examination in this project.

Besides the many subjects I came across in my research of the life stories of the characters in my videos – many of them are treated in my

“extended work stories” in this book – some common questions and subjects bind the video and text works together and are emphasized at the end of this introductory text: the role of reenactment, the function of voice-over and the meaning of names. Th ese themes are here theo- rized by a clustering of observations and considerations, together with examples from my practice, rather then an analytical exegesis of the history and meaning of these terms.

Although I am aiming in this dissertation to look beyond the im- pulse to make art, there is a level of desire in this work that should be acknowledged. Something in this work is somehow more impelling than formal questions (although I disregard the division between form and content). It might be self-evident but it has to be emphasized that it is the narrative urge and desire – the impulse to tell stories – that is the driving force behind the works in this dissertation. Th e biographies of Zdenko Bužek, Kumiko Muraoka, Johnnie Walker and Choi Eun- hee are the axes that these works revolve around. Th eir stories have in diff erent ways been mediated by themselves and others (in installa- tions, documentaries, fi ction, articles, and memoirs). My task became to fi nd interconnections, correspondences, openings, patterns, and fi - gures by revisiting and retelling “their” stories and to fi nd connections with social, political, and aesthetic issues in the past and the present.

Th at means trying to fi nd a place in between collective and personal memory.

About the content and structure

It may be needless to say, but in this dissertation project these questions and the conducted research have not been developed and performed in a strictly linear or analytical way. It has been a process of learning by doing and observing what had already been done. Several aspects of this research process came about in an unexpected way. Th e underlying wish was to expand and deepen a critical, refl exive practice. I raised questions but basically wanted to “answer” the questions in and th-

12. Zdenko Bužek exhibited “himself” in the exhibition Biography (in Zagreb, 2001). In the case of Kumiko Muraoka I got in contact with her life story through the work of Chris Marker. And Johnnie Walker’s and Choi Eun-hee’s life stories automatically connected my research with other artists:

Haruki Murakami and Shin Sang-ok.