In terms of liveness discourse, and with reference to The Bunny Game:

: What are the implications of the way performance art and film are combined within the platform of film?

Abstract

My project of The Bunny Game (Rehmeier, 2010) – a horror feature movie that employs real acts of torture as opposed to effects – is about examining, in terms of liveness discourse, what the implications are of the way performance art and film are combined within the platform of film. Most research that has been done to date regarding the live in a mediatized environment has primarily focused on the use of media in the performance space. I am, however, interested in the collaboration and interaction between media and performance art on screen, as is the case for he The Bunny Game (Rehmeier, 2010). My research entails identifying medium specificities for performance art and film as well as their relevant subcategories (extreme) body art and the (torture) horror genre, comparing them, establishing the existing liveness discourse represented by Auslander and Phelan, discussion Giesekam’s multimedia-intermedia spectrum of performance art and media collaborations, and ultimately, detecting what implications the intermedial use of performance art in a filmic context has, on the work and on its audiences. I am writing this piece of research from a pre-existing interest in combining performance studies and film theory, however, it is primarily t be seen as a contribution to and widening of liveness discourse (which deals with the live, the relationship between performance and media as well as with ideas of authenticity and the Real). Secondary, I hope this raises questions about the ideas we have of what constitutes performance art and the horror genre and what their relationship to the Real is supposed to be.

Date of Award	2018
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Aberystwyth University
Supervisor	Stephen Matthew Greer (Supervisor)