Tehching Hsieh: Performance Art and the "Unique Significance of Particular Experiences"

Hannah Higgins says in "Fluxus Experience 1" that she believes "the ultimate goal of Fluxus [is] to form multiple pathways toward 'ontological knowledge' and the expansion of the 'setting of the human experience.'" ("Fluxus Experience 1," page 38). Her argument is that the experiences of a specific human does much more in understanding the whole of humanity than a concept of universal knowledge, such as the Jungian collective unconscious.

There is a performance artist named Tehching Hsieh who made a name for himself in the 1970s as someone who explored the boundaries of his own body through acts of personal deprivation. The boundaries he set were almost Oulipian in their arbitrary nature, but he adhered to them to the letter. As an example, (the one I will use to discuss his relation to the Fluxus movement, however tenuous it may be) Hsieh undertook a one-year project wherein he would take a photo of himself every hour on the hour for a full year, wearing the same outfit every time he took the picture. This performance, which was simply titled One Year Performance (1980-1981) (http://www.one-year-performance.com/) explores the idea of elevating the mundane in a very Dada-esque way.

The photos Hsieh took were actually individual frames of film on a camera; every time he punched a time clock to show he was present for the picture every hour of the year, the camera would expose a single frame of film so that by the end of the year Hsieh had a nearly seven minute film showing him gradually aging over the course of the year. Individually, the photographs mean nothing. They are not particularly well-framed or aesthetically pleasing, and they don't show anything particularly groundbreaking in and of themselves. Strung together into a film, though, they make a strong statement about the passing of time and the nature of humanity with relationship to time. There is a video of his performance piece on YouTube, which is definitely worth exploration. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVpyMfeqoBY

Hsieh would be demonstrating Higgins' idea of the "unique significance of particular experiences" ("Fluxus Experiences 1," page 38) to show something about the whole of humanity while using only himself to make this statement. There is no effort on his part to try to make this an overarching narrative on human life or the effects of time on the body, but those are both evident. This piece is playful, in spite of its somber tone, because of the arbitrary nature of its rules, and this is what makes me consider it a Fluxian, or at least neo-Dada piece.

There is an argument that the actual performance, which took place over the course of a year, is far too long for a Fluxus piece, since most Fluxus artists aimed for brevity in their work, keeping everything simple and concise. I would argue that the film is the end result of the project, though, and that it should stand alone in consideration as an art piece. That Hsieh took a year to make the piece is impressive and remarkable, but his documentation of the performance is the true art piece. At less than seven minutes, the film could definitely be considered a Fluxus piece.