presence now is always complicated and layered, a thing of degrees, and in these strange times one can feel closer to a person, sometimes, when they are further away than when they are fully and simply before us. (Etchells 1999: 97)

WALTER BENJAMIN

The concept of aura ... may usefully be illustrated with reference to the aura of natural ones. We define the aura of the latter as the unique phenomenon of distance, however close it may be. If, while resting on a summer afternoon, you follow with your eyes a mountain range on the horizon or a branch which casts its shadow over you, you experience the aura of those mountains, of that branch (Benjamin 1992: 216)

GEORGE QUASHA AND CHARLES STEIN ON GARY HILL’S PROJECTIVE INSTALLATION, VIEWER (1996)

No one’s fooled when a video projector casts the image of a person upon the wall - and yet, it has its own reality, its own intensity of view. What shows up in this hypersensualized space is how these quite simple and ordinary people, whose living and breathing images are projected on the wall, are in fact quite powerful presences - unavoidably engaging and almost eerily present presences. Yet they are merely projections. (Quasha and Stein 1997: 19, original emphasis)

GAY McAULEY

‘In open spaces that do not have a curtain (…) it seems that the performer creates a kind of energized zone around him or her that the spectator, even when free to move anywhere at will, is loath to enter. There is always a distance between spectator and performer, either physically set by the arrangement of stage and auditorium, or spontaneously arrived at moment by moment by the spectators and performers. In flexible performance conditions spectators leave space between themselves and the performers in part from fear of becoming part of the spectacle and in part because distance is in fact a necessary part of being able to see.’ (McAuley, 2003: 276)

References