This thematic project develops out of my current research into the performative, theatrical, videographic aspects of the contemporary court of law. As one aspect of our research we will visit The Hague to observe trials in process.

How can art works and artistic practice be used to understand the cultural performance of the trial, including evidence, testimony, the role of the audience, and the reproduction of the trial itself? Where do artistic techniques and techniques of the trial, court and law cross over? We may understand the trial not just as the manifestation of “the law” but the point at which the law intersects, sometimes awkwardly, or unjustly, with human behaviour and our capacities for expression and understanding. The court utilizes a range of representational modes including transcription, translation, abstraction, (perhaps even transubstantiation.) It is a cultural mechanism, technology or “post-medium” for reproduction.

The court, its formalities, rituals, and recent reinvention as a supra national instrument, can be seen as an instance of cultural performance and theatricality. A very important one, but perhaps not entirely unrelated to other modes of display and discussion, from magic acts, runway modeling, talk shows, and political speechifying, which represent a bringing to the moment, a testing and testifying in the presence (or telepresence) of others, a performative politic and a politics of performance.

To focus our investigation through discussion of a series of readings, we will consider the ways in which testimony, acts of witness, evidentiary objects, documents, and the semiotics of court behaviour and role play relate to the theatrical-cinematic-videographic-performative continuum which visual artists pursue. The theatrical (as opposed to theatre proper) can be understood as a wide range of practices, with space, staging, framing with the audience, and the political at the center.

A thematic project by Judy Radul (May 2009)