Applied Live Art: Socially Engaged & Site-Responsive Performance

Applied Live Art looks at the ways in which performance can integrate participants and local context into the development of performance work. Three site-specific and socially engaged projects outline a methodology of practice that can integrate participants as co-authors. The book explores locale by delving into the rituals and myths in Naples, Italy; listening and sharing young peoples stories on HIV/Aids in northern Ghana; and traversing the psychogeographic boundaries of memory in Beirut, Lebanon. The projects all experimented with the role of authorship, focusing on how a practitioner can shift the attention from the artist to the body politic. Applied Live Art is proposed as a term to describe practices that include a hybrid of time-based media options, which include a social component as their primary focus. For those interested in the social interventions of Tino Seghal and Santiago Sierra, or the artist walks of Francis Alÿs and Janet Cardiff, or the collaborative practices of Jeremy Deller and Suzanne Lacey this book will guide with practical and theoretical insight. Those who work with people and context and are interested in placemaking will benefit from this research.