Balancing Acts

2000-2001

Photographic Truth, Performance, and Slight of Hand

Beside the semiotic play, for me it’s about entering into a situation – sometimes quite public, other times secret or hidden – discovering something, reacting, performing an ephemeral act or intervention. Like spelling out some words that will soon disappear – or sticking a few blades of grass into the bark of a tree – or piling up a few small stones atop a boulder – or trying for a couple of hours to balance a folding beach chair on a wobbly limb – or some other equally useless activity. A different economy of materials and means. The works are as much about performance as they are photography.

I got to thinking about the coincidence of the photo with the event: the “truth” of the image – an almost entirely discredited concept with the advent and now ubiquity of digital manipulation – and the veracity of the performance itself (always in doubt with regard to a trick or stunt).  I found out that some of the first films were made by vaudevillians and carnie acts – magicians, strongmen, daredevils, acrobats – and became fascinated by this mix of trickery and provocation to “believe it or not” – the “believe it or not” of a picture, itself a lie from the very beginning. And yet, none of this really mattering within the disinterested appeal of entertainment. Here, all bets are off.

But I was also interested in the absurdity of the act itself – it’s pathetic, as well as intimate quality. It all having something to do with boredom. Besides the actions done outdoors, I began doing equally silly things with stuff around the house: like stacking up chairs with scraps of wood and apples, or a candle on a precarious beam – or constructing an impromptu seat with plywood bits wedged between opposing walls – or steadying a couple of wooden strips on facing chairs, or in the corner of a room, or balancing a trail out the window – or erecting a bridge of books … and snapping a photograph before it all fell down. 

— Stephan Pascher August, 2003 (excerpt from a lecture)