Remaking the Work

Re-enactment, in its most common sense, signifies the representation of a historical event as it actually occurred, a representation meant to reveal a truth that we had failed to grasp. In this occurence, there is the wish — or the hope — for truthfulness in terms of its staging. Indeed, a reconstruction rests on rigorous documentation, and it is understood that it be as close as possible to what actually happened. The aim of such a concrete actualization of a drama is thus to bring to life an event that would otherwise have remained historical, of the past, and as such, inaccessible to experience. Reliving the action as it occurred is said to allow us to see it in a new light, possibly truer to its actual unfolding. Concrete action thus harbours a truth that would not have otherwise emerged, even if one knew what actually occurred. This narrative concretization enables a unique experience, bearing truths that remain veiled in the inertia of passive knowledge. It is the obvious and implicit motivation for engaging in such an endeavour.

Transposing all this to the art sphere brings us fairly close to the idea of re-enactment as defined in the glossary of the Québec Triennial 2011 catalogue: an “actualization significantly at odds with post-modern notions of appropriation and citation.” With the further distinction I believe necessary of setting re-enactment or reconstruction against a certain deconstructivist postmodernism. For there is of course construction in reconstruction, which would tend to distance it considerably from a postmodern inclination to undo in order to examine the mechanisms of constructing verisimilitude — with an emphasis on “similitude,” or simulation. Re-enactment also involves a search and hope for verisimilitude and truth, even in an outright copy or reproduction. Real knowledge and know-how is brought about through the event, while the only truth to which the deconstructive approach holds are the devices of representation.