Off Sites: Contemporary Performance Beyond Site-Specific by Bertie Ferdman (review)

Bertie Ferdman’s Off Sites examines the evolution of site-specific performance through the dual lenses of visual and performing arts, arguing that the continuous and shifting effects of technology, the global economy, and climate change are altering our perception of preconceived notions of both time and space. Ferdman considers the political, economic, and technological impacts on the wide array of site-specific works analyzed in this book, concluding that “the outdated theatrical engagement of the term will no longer suffice for its many contemporary variations” (9). Off Sites draws the reader into a discourse of physical, temporal, and mental sites—each one with its own set of political implications. A broad spectrum of performances is detailed within this work, ranging from David Levine’s works challenging theatricality to the legal and social implications of removing a meteorite from its sacred resting place in el Campo del Cielo, Argentina.

The introductory chapter traces the genealogy of site specificity in the Americas and introduces the reader to Ferdman’s concept of “off site” performances. Ferdman analyzes the evolution of site specificity, first through the theories and practices of visual art and then through the evolution of site-specific performance. Doing this, she grounds the reader in a synoptic understanding of the ongoing changes within both fields and their parallel development, regardless of the reader’s point of origin. The thorough introduction offers the opportunity for readers of any background to follow her argument as presented within this work. Ferdman then introduces her categories of sites, integral for her concept of working “off site.” She dedicates the four remaining chapters to disciplinary sites, spectator sites, temporal sites, and urban sites.

In chapter 2, “Disciplinary Sites: Situating Theatre,” Ferdman ties the parallel evolutionary pathways of visual art and performance together, analyzing the work of David Levine, which “is a very deliberate attempt to interweave and therefore question disciplinary histories that define, separate, and categorize theatre versus art histories” (34). Focusing on Private Moment (2015), Actors and Work (2005), and Habit (2012), among others, Ferdman argues that the notion of site reaches beyond physical space and into the artist’s theoretical framework, affecting the audience’s point of reference. The breadth of performances explored within this chapter are unified in the ways Levine situates—or sites—the performances outside of traditional theatrical spaces: in a park, on a farm, at a place of employment. Ferdman argues that Levine is situating theatre as a “disciplinary site,” creating performances that work outside that site, thereby challenging theatrical conventions and influencing the audience’s observational patterns.

“Spectator Sites: Artistic Intervention and the Unintended Audience” further explores sites of spectatorship by focusing on the removed spectator who interacts with, and affects, the artwork without witnessing the performance itself. Ferdman highlights El Chaco en Kassel, (2012) and the off-site international audience engagement that transformed this piece into The Weight of Uncertainty, as well as Mi Vida Después (Argentina 2009). These performances “made art from the real, and also, simultaneously, intervened in the real, by establishing a communicative kind of off-site spectatorship that existed not as independent from the work, but, on the contrary, in conversation with it” (65). These performances had tangible legal impacts, creating changes in law and in public perception and spurring conversations and reactions even from those who had never witnessed the works in person. El Chaco en Kassel and Mi Vida Después garnered off-site spectatorship, an occurrence that becomes increasingly possible with technological advancements.

Engaging with Rebecca Schneider’s work on theatrical reenactment, Ferdman explores temporal sites in chapter 4, “Temporal Sites: Moving Site, Moving Time.” Ferdman highlights Geyser Land (2003) to demonstrate nonlinear experiences of time created by site-specific performances that situate the history of a location and a people within the present audience’s experience, illustrating the political and social implications of leaving the site of linear temporality. Recounting RFK in EKY (2004)—a...