“Responsibility of Acting”

How do artists reflect on their art, when the art can not be reproduced? How relevant is artistic research, when there is no physically present artefact? Are actors responsible for the act?

The actors gone, there’s only you and me
And if we break before the dawn, they’ll
use up what we used to be.
(Peter Gabriel, Here comes the Flood)

The Swiss Institute for the Performing Arts and Film (ipf) conceives, initiates, and supervises research projects that enquire into both basic and applied research issues and establish a dialogue between art and science. Research topics include research on art, research through art, and research with art. Performative and cinematographic means are analysed not only as cultural strategies but also tested as research techniques and are directly linked with the Master of Arts courses (MA in Theatre and MA in Film).

An aim and major difficulty in the research programmes are the sometimes ‘un-academic’ outcomes of research results in form of performances or films. I would like, after a short introduction on the history and outcomes of the ipf, present two examples and as outcome from these discuss the three topics mentioned above:

Cinémémoire – An Oral History of Swiss Film. This research project aims at establishing a more comprehensive view of filmmaking in Switzerland during the 1960s and 70s. It focuses on the developments and contexts that either substantiate or refute the notion of a break between “old” and “new” Swiss cinema, and which shed light on the permeability between the various areas of production, creative scenes, and language regions. Based on the methods of oral history, the Cinémémoire research team is conducting interviews with thirty contemporary witnesses in Switzerland to record their individual and institutional experiences with film technology, acting, etc. Using a semi-standardised questionnaire, these filmed qualitative interviews are designed to elucidate the concrete social, ideational, and material conditions under which films were produced, distributed, and screened.

Authenticity of Emotion. Are emotions produced during an actor’s performance that render it authentic or does acting rather involve calling up a seemingly authentic behavioural sequence? Konstantin Sergejewitsch Stanislawski and Lee Strassberg succeeded in establishing the use of emotional memory as a core element of actor training. But are their assumptions about the significance of emotional memory also valid in scientific terms? Using modern procedures capable of imaging brain activity, a joint Swiss Epilepsy Centre and the Institute for the Performing Arts and Film research team is examining whether top-class actors use emotions in their performances. Magnetic resonance imaging research conducted to date reveals that whereas actors familiar with the techniques of Method Acting activate key structures of emotional processing during their imagined acting out of emotions, this does not occur with mere text recall. Does this evidence also substantiate Strassberg’s and Stanislawski’s theoretical assumptions? Since actors have now scientifically been proved to be experts of their emotions, is it time to find out how they get in control of ours?

Anton Rey,  Professor, Institute for the Performing Arts and Film, University of the Arts Zurich