Can I write about a performance without having seen it? More specifically, can I talk about a performance by watching a recorded video of it? It is impossible to testify about specific moments of a performance. What I can do is lie. This writing intends to read as a 'critique (or review)' of a particular work while noting its anticipated failure. For instance, let’s consider the 'things' discussed in Denis Diderot's 'Letter on the Blind' as 'performances.' Just as the blind person strives to understand that something is present even when it is not before their eyes, I too have never seen that performance, yet I write as if I have a memory of it, asserting my right to speak from the uncertainty of memory.

Does the video recording of a performance undermine the nature of a performance, which is predicated on the uniqueness of moments? Let’s remember the fact that we operate under the condition that everything is recorded. Even our everyday gestures are being deliberately transformed into forms that are easier to record. However, being aware that something is being recorded does not necessarily mean that we become more prudent. Perhaps we become more careless or lax, justifying it by the possibility that performances can be edited afterward. Conversely, we might also become refined in ways we never imagined. Video can create unexpected collisions between scenes, manipulating time by increasing or accelerating the pace. Nonetheless, it is hard to shake off the suspicion that video undergoes some 'degradation' in the process of mediating the performance. Recordings and archives are always seen as flatter than our living, breathing experiences. Is watching a performance through recorded video a new experience, laden with the anxiety that it might be fatally misinterpreted? How closely related, or unrelated, is this novelty to previous performances?

The difference between live performance and recorded video is similar to the relationship between the shooting location and the editing table. Unlike the shooting location, which always requires light, the editing room is often secretly set up in dark spaces, basements, or sometimes warehouses. The darkness of the editing room is a reversal of the light from the shooting location, creating a virtual space-time meant to simulate the theater. Harun Farocki once said that the editing room is a place that makes the recorded images blurry. The possibility of cutting, pasting, and eliminating the unnecessary in the editing room allows for more leniency regarding mistakes made on the shooting set. The editing room is both a place where something new can be created from fumbling hands and a space that transforms images through the overlapping potential for post-editing. The more we touch an image, the more it transforms into something ambiguous.

The recorded video of a performance is filmed and edited primarily for archiving purposes, as well as to serve as a tool for explaining the performance to someone who will encounter it later. One important function of the video in this regard is to provide context for the performance. It aims to be accessible to as many people as possible. The recorded video of "{Open set} ⊂ Quadriennal", received from the artists, includes not only scenes documenting the performance but also separately filmed scenes that convey the context of the performance. The video does not hide the fact that this performance is being reenacted for 'someone' who will later engage with it through the video. The performers actively participate in this reenactment. Once the audience leaves, the performance becomes a set awaiting the director's direction behind the camera.

The context of "{Open set} ⊂ Quadriennal" inferred from the recorded video is as follows: When the audience first opens the door to the space, they are confronted with a long black wall instead of a corridor. This wall obstructs the audience's ability to navigate freely through the space, making it impossible to understand the layout. Soon, as the wall slowly begins to change its angle (it is suspiciously long and mounted on wheels, resembling a train in that it is long, mobile, and directs people), the audience takes the opportunity to visit the rooms within the space one by one. The doors that open depend on the angle of the wall. The audience enters the openings almost as if they have no choice, or as if it is natural. While it seems that their steps could go anywhere, the flow of movement guided by the black wall is quite compelling. The black wall serves both as a force that opens and closes parts of the space and as a backdrop where performers can appear and disappear, manipulating the situation. As the performance comes to an end, the audience returns to the place where they first entered, realizing through the video that the structure was arranged with rooms on either side of a central corridor.

Following the old perception that the wall is a fixed structure, it might be that the space is actually rotating rather than the wall moving. One could think of it as a space where the entrances to the rooms open in a specific sequence. In this performance, the wall acts as a scenario that fictionally reconstructs the space. It’s a reversal of perception that suggests it’s not the wall that moves, but rather the order of the space that is being rearranged. As one is swept along by the movement of the black wall, it feels as though they return to the entryway of the space, making it feel like a gigantic circular table. Not only do the audience's pathways form a circle, but the timelines of departure and arrival also reconnect in a circular manner. Just as film reels rotate in a circular motion on an editing table, the black wall stitches the real-time situations of unpredictable audience movements into units of short scenes. Something is being edited.

The recorded video reconstructs the experience of the space scene by scene to reveal this context. As scenes shot later intermingle with real-time footage, the video exposes the rough seams between presence and aftermath. This is both the magic of the cinematic device and the moment when its secrets are revealed. The audience appears and then disappears, while the performer pretends to place down a piece of paper, even though their hands are empty. A ten-minute intermission is replaced by a black screen. The camera follows the movements of someone mopping the floor, zooming in on the wet marks left behind. The gestures of the performer are once again enacted on a stage now devoid of the audience. This intertwines the boundaries of real-time and after, intruding into the present moment. Thus, the recorded video of "{Open set} ⊂ Quadriennal" discusses editing in a dual sense: editing the audience's movement for the construction of a narrative that gradually unveils the mystery of the space and re-scripting it into scenes. In this performance, editing is not only about cutting and pasting images and spaces to create specific intentions but also serves as a tool that connects our experience of having been 'edited' with reality as a layered possibility.

A man begs the gatekeeper to let him pass through the door. The gatekeeper tells him he cannot enter. The gatekeeper allows the man to wait until he becomes very old and frail, until he shrinks to the point where he can barely speak to the flea that lives on the gatekeeper's coat. Then, leaning close to the hard-of-hearing man's ear, he says, 'This door is a door that cannot be entered. And this door came into being because of you.'^{[ 1 ]} When the black wall moves, we are not heading towards what lies beyond it. Instead, we are witnessing the illusion created by the tension between the impulse to want to go beyond the wall and the wall itself. The wall is a fiction that emerges from such temptations and desires. Just as the principle of the external screen prevents us from knowing what occurs outside the frame, we can only see one side of the wall. From this limitation, we promised that everything could become possible.

P.S.

The difficulty in discussing recorded video often lies in the confusion between talking about the content of the performance and discussing what appears on the screen. I could not write this without becoming entangled in such confusion. Just as ghost stories frequently emerge in editing rooms, the act of mixing time and space while editing images evokes a sense of unease unrelated to intention. Similarly, the recorded video of a performance produces a surplus of sensations distinct from the performance itself. As mentioned earlier, this could be a trace of a degraded experience or a sense of lack. If this performance is being reenacted for 'someone,' then the assumption that the absence of that 'someone' already has an owner can be considered ghostly. Of course, these discussions are so vague that one might doubt whether they possess enough substance to be worth discussing, but I attempt to address them because they reflect the understanding that we have never truly seen the same thing or shared identical experiences. This is the reality that the world is always mediated imperfectly. Moreover, this sensation amplifies a certain kind of fear when viewing Mu:p's performance beyond the monitor screen.

^{Translated by ChatGPT}