Hi. Performance artist Xavier Cha invites eleven actors to become part of her work in “Body Drama”, a cross between live performance and projected video. Several times a day an actor will perform a 20-minute scene, with a body-mounted camera which captures his or her reactions which are later projected on video inside the gallery. The actor moves around the gallery expressing panic and terror and is observed by the live audience.
What’s interesting is, neither the live performance nor the projected video provide a complete picture here. We don’t see the complete physical movement of the actor in the footage, and the camera’s point-of-view isn’t accessible to us during the performance. We’re not just observing, but we’re not exactly part of the performance. As the relationship between the performer and the audience blurs, we are forced into observing ourselves observing the performer. The actual experience is never authentic, it’s always dynamic.
