Martha Wilson performance,
"Premiere"

This article, "Going Virtual," by Martha Wilson, was first published by the College Art Association's Art Journal, Vol. 59, No. 2, Summer 2000.

 

Illustration: Still from Premiere, 1972
I am dramatizing the performance aspect of human behavior by reading a script in front of this video monitor. Individuals play at being themselves in order to realize themselves, so in a sense, all human beings are performing in front of video monitors or audiences, fictive or real, at all times. What this means for the concept of "self" is that the self does not exist as anything but a dramatic effect. The self others deal with is the image we project into a scene of action, and what is at stake is whether this image will be credited or discredited. For example, I am playing at being an artist in front of a video monitor, and what is at stake is not whether I am here, but whether I am successfully convincing my audience that I am an artist. Even if I were a con-artist, I would have to use techniques everyone uses to convince my audience of my sincerity. What is important to this piece is not what I am saying, but what I am not saying: what the audience reads from my eye-movements, tone of voice, gestures, mistakes and so on. If this were a real-life situation, the audience might exercise tact, protecting me from any hint that my performance is not going over. I am not being negative about play-acting. A good performance transforms style into self, or style into art.

Franklin Furnace's presentation and documentation of contemporary art is rooted in my personal perspective, which is that of an artist and a producer of art--a woman artist whose works were scorned in 1972 by her male colleagues. This invisible social position led me to found an institution that would champion forms of art that were not accepted by mainstream institutions, and were often politically in opposition to mainstream cultural values. (I can conclude this now that I have 20-24-year hindsight.)

The concept for Franklin Furnace germinated in 1975, when I saw that major institutions were not accommodating works of art being published by artists. There was a vacuum, a hole in the artworld, and I decided to jump through it into the unknown. What was the worst that could happen to me? I would have to go back to work as a secretary again. I decided to gather, exhibit, and sell, preserve and proselytise on behalf of the intersection of word and image, the form that came to be known as "artists' books." I opened Franklin Furnace Archive, Inc. in my living loft (which happened to be a storefront) on April 3rd, 1976.