ARTIFICIAL HELLS

artificial hells
Paul Chan, Waiting for Godot in New Orleans Archive, 2010, installation view at MoMA
Lower Ninth Ward (working notes, maps, the seminar syllabi, Susan
Sontag’s essay on her production of Waiting for Godot in Sarajevo), radical
pamphlets framed behind glass, three blue plastic sheets, three ‘sculptures’
used as props in the performances, and a small plasma screen showing the
‘bootleg video’ (which makes its unofficial status questionable). Unlike
Jeremy Deller’s archive of The Battle of Orgreave (discussed in Chapter 1),
the selection of objects in Chan’s display is geared towards representing the
theatrical production rather than to the social and political events occasioning
this work. He has also edited a book documenting the project, which is
comprehensive but classical in format, including a careful selection of images
charting the work’s process, press clippings about Katrina, reprinted essays
(Sontag once more, plus Alain Badiou and Terry Eagleton), the school
syllabi, and Chan’s interviews with key participants. The overall impression
is one of order, rather than the chaotic polyvocality and dissent that mark the
publications of, say, Thomas Hirschhorn.
Listening to Chan speak about the process of realising Godot, one realises
that the best documentation of this project is neither the archive nor
the book, but the performative medium of the lecture accompanied by a
powerpoint: live, narrative and time- based. To my knowledge, Chan has
given this talk three times in New York City; I have heard it twice and
both times the audience were gripped. The story he tells is a meditation
on art, politics and community- building – in short, everything that is
glossed over in the archival presentation at MoMA. Even though Waiting
for Godot in New Orleans was not participatory in any conventional sense,
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