Documenting Intimacy is a research initiative piloted by Dr Brian Lobel and Dr Marisa Zanotti to explore documenting one-to-one performance from the perspective of artists. The Live Art Development Agency (LADA) was invited to be a commissioning and publishing partner on the project and Alex Eisenberg (LADA) has produced the website.

Project Statement

We initiated a research process by asking a community of artists about their experiences with one-to-one performance and the pressures, both artistically and professionally, to document performance, and to document performance well. A number of questions arose which informed our initial conversations. These questions included: Does documenting, in a traditional sense, interrupt the intimacy which one-to-one performance often promises as its unique quality? What innovative methods can be used to capture a multitude of audience experiences? Does anyone really care about documentation or what remains after the performance? Is it purely an economic or professional pressure which demands this documentation? Can documentation be an integral piece of the performance-making process?