- Film Studies, Contemporary Art, Performing Arts, Performance Art, Film Theory, Film Analysis, and 26 moreJapanese Cinema, Art History, Art and Independent Cinema, Site-Specific Art and Performance, Experimental Forms of Performing Arts, Projection, Experimental Cinema, Installation Art, Artist Film and Video, Video Art, Experimental Media Arts, Intermediality, Intermedia, East Asian Studies, East Asian Cinema, Expanded Cinema, East Asian Art history, Expanded Cinema Japan, Japanese Art, Experimental Film, Japanese Art History, Pneumatic Art, History of Art, Avant-Garde Cinema, Media Archaeology, and Film Festivalsedit
- http://www.rossjulian.com/ Julian Ross is an Assistant Professor at Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society... morehttp://www.rossjulian.com/
Julian Ross is an Assistant Professor at Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society.
https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/julian-rossedit
Co-edited with Ann Adachi-Tasch and Go Hirasawa. Texts by Adachi Masao, Iimura Takahiko, Ishiko Junzō, Ishizaki Kōichirō, Jōnouchi Matoharu, Manabe Hiroshi, Matsuda Masao (a.k.a. Hirosawa Mina), Miyai Rikurō, Ōe Masanori, Satō Jūshin... more
Co-edited with Ann Adachi-Tasch and Go Hirasawa.
Texts by Adachi Masao, Iimura Takahiko, Ishiko Junzō, Ishizaki Kōichirō, Jōnouchi Matoharu, Manabe Hiroshi, Matsuda Masao (a.k.a. Hirosawa Mina), Miyai Rikurō, Ōe Masanori, Satō Jūshin (Shigechika) and Tone Yasunao.
Published to coincide with the exhibition More Than Cinema: Motoharu Jonouchi and Keiichi Tanaami at Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, 6 March - 22 November 2020, which we co-curated, and the exhibition Shuzo Azuchi Gulliver's Cinematic Illumination at MoMA, New York.
Intermedia and Expanded Cinema, both as critical approach and artistic practice, left an indelible mark in a period of Japanese art history that is broadly considered to be one of its most dynamic moments in the wake of its postwar reemergence.
Despite the burgeoning interest in academic and curatorial circles in this segment of Japanese art history, the paucity of readily available material in a language other that Japanese has meant the local context, particularly the ways in which the terms were critically debated, was relatively neglected.
Rather than assuming the interpretations of the terms were the same as their counterparts abroad, we decided to commission translations of a selection of key texts that we felt were instrumental in shaping the specific discourse around these terms.
Through these translations, our hope is that Japanese debates on intermedia can contribute to international discourse, and that works of Japanese Expanded cinema can be preserved, reenacted and analyzed with these discussions in mind.
Texts by Adachi Masao, Iimura Takahiko, Ishiko Junzō, Ishizaki Kōichirō, Jōnouchi Matoharu, Manabe Hiroshi, Matsuda Masao (a.k.a. Hirosawa Mina), Miyai Rikurō, Ōe Masanori, Satō Jūshin (Shigechika) and Tone Yasunao.
Published to coincide with the exhibition More Than Cinema: Motoharu Jonouchi and Keiichi Tanaami at Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, 6 March - 22 November 2020, which we co-curated, and the exhibition Shuzo Azuchi Gulliver's Cinematic Illumination at MoMA, New York.
Intermedia and Expanded Cinema, both as critical approach and artistic practice, left an indelible mark in a period of Japanese art history that is broadly considered to be one of its most dynamic moments in the wake of its postwar reemergence.
Despite the burgeoning interest in academic and curatorial circles in this segment of Japanese art history, the paucity of readily available material in a language other that Japanese has meant the local context, particularly the ways in which the terms were critically debated, was relatively neglected.
Rather than assuming the interpretations of the terms were the same as their counterparts abroad, we decided to commission translations of a selection of key texts that we felt were instrumental in shaping the specific discourse around these terms.
Through these translations, our hope is that Japanese debates on intermedia can contribute to international discourse, and that works of Japanese Expanded cinema can be preserved, reenacted and analyzed with these discussions in mind.
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Book chapter for The Japanese Cinema Book (BFI), edited by Hideaki Fujiki and Alastair Phillips
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Co-written with Anja Dornieden and Juan David González Monroy - a written response to our co-curated expanded cinema programme The Open Frame.
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Book chapter. Book co-edited by Fiona Noble, Rebecca Ferreboeuf and Tara Plunkett
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Book chapter. In Japanese. Co-edited book by Tomohiro Nishimura and Yu Kaneko
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Co-written with Becca Voelcker.
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At 1 p.m. on 6 February 1971, eight “actors,” a reporter, and a cam- eraman entered a space at an undisclosed location with the inten- tion of spending 24 hours together. They did not belong to a single artistic group and some of them had... more
At 1 p.m. on 6 February 1971, eight “actors,” a reporter, and a cam- eraman entered a space at an undisclosed location with the inten- tion of spending 24 hours together. They did not belong to a single artistic group and some of them had never met before. Tōmatsu Shōmei’s photographic record of this event appeared in the spring 1971 issue of the magazine Kikan shashin eizō accompanied by sections from a transcript of the tape recording. The images and the text – jointly titled NO.541 – offer fragmented glimpses into the situations and conversations unfolding in the room and also function with and against each other, as in a dialogue. We continue this dia- logue in the writing up of major themes contextualizing the performing and recording of this work: the space, the magazine page, and the body. We imagine ourselves in NO.541 and enact this intermingling of space-times by reproducing not only some of Tōmatsu’s photographs but also parts of the transcript in translation. Joining the conversation, we adopt some of the main strategies of the image-text, such as fragmentation, improvisation, and refusal of any singularity. Woman C and Man G take on the role of mediums, channeling, for instance, a possible future re-enactment instead of producing a conclusive account of the event.
Research Interests: Japanese Studies, Photography, Performance Art, Japanese Art, History of Japanese Photography, and 9 morePhotographic Magazines (History of Japanese Photography), History of photography, Performance Documentation, Photography (Visual Studies), Japanese Art History, Photography and performance, Cultural and Political Activism of the 1960s and 1970s, History and Theory of Photography, and Tomatsu Shomei
Editorial for the PhotoResearcher No 24, published by the European Society for the History of Photography in October 2015 and guest edited by Jelena Stojkovic
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PhotoResearcher n. 24, special issue on slide projections.
Article is on intermedia in Japan, performance projections and uses of the slide projector in postwar Japanese art.
Article is on intermedia in Japan, performance projections and uses of the slide projector in postwar Japanese art.
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On the distribution and reception of 1960s-70s Japanese experimental films in Europe with a focus on film festivals and curated exhibitions.
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Introduction & In Conversation with Riar Rizaldi for online platform Vdrome for the online screening of his film Kasiterit (2019), 10-23 November 2020.
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Film Festival Catalogue text for Frames of Representation at ICA, London, 27 November - 13 December 2020. On the film 'From Tomorrow On, I Will' by Wu Linfeng & Ivan Marković.
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Exhibitoin text for Su Hui-yu's solo show 'The Women's Revenge' at Double Square Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan, 31 October - 12 December 2020.
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Short text for 'Notes on Film' a series of responses to covid-19 commissioned by Vienna Shorts
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Exhibition catalogue text, a conversation with Lukas Marxt, edited by Claudia Slanar.
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Exhibition Catalogue text for Fluorescent Chrysanthemum Remembered at Laznia Center for Contemporary Art in Gdansk, Poland, curated by Jasia Reichardt.
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Exhibition Catalogue text for the group exhibition Japanese Expanded Cinema Revisited at Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, 15 August - 15 October 2017, for which I was curatorial advisor. Catalogue co-edited by Co-edited by Miyuki Endo,... more
Exhibition Catalogue text for the group exhibition Japanese Expanded Cinema Revisited at Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, 15 August - 15 October 2017, for which I was curatorial advisor.
Catalogue co-edited by Co-edited by Miyuki Endo, Noriyuki Kurokawa and Hiroko Tasaka.
Catalogue co-edited by Co-edited by Miyuki Endo, Noriyuki Kurokawa and Hiroko Tasaka.
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Film Festival Catalogue Text for In Focus: Kazuo Hara at Open City Documentary Festival, London
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Short text for film festival catalogue for the 2016 FeKK Ljubljana short film festival, edited by Tina Poglajen.
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Festival catalogue text for 2015 Sonic Acts, Amsterdam, edited by Mirna Belina. The interview is with Kodwo Eshun of The Otolith Group.
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In 1971, the Bikyōtō Revolution Committee declared their members would not exhibit their artworks in galleries or museum for a year. The proposition channeled Japan’s critical reflection on the concept of “space” that was initiated at the... more
In 1971, the Bikyōtō Revolution Committee declared their members would not exhibit their artworks in galleries or museum for a year. The proposition channeled Japan’s critical reflection on the concept of “space” that was initiated at the ‘From Space to Environment’ exhibition held in 1966, Tokyo, and remained in vogue with the emergence of kankyō geijutsu (environment arts) and intermedia arts. Projection, in both slide- and moving-image formats, became central to the discussion as artists relied on multiplication of projectors to expand the sense of space in the pavilions for the Osaka Expo 1970. Whilst the Expo artists strived to immerse their audiences into sensory submersion, the art students of Bikyōtō Revolution Committee, in explicit rejection of the Expo, called for a critical reevaluation of the experience of “space.”
This paper will explore the three incarnations of the River film by Yamanaka Nobuo, a member of the committee, who presented the same footage of a river in different spatial contexts between 1971-1972: To Project a Film of Filmed River on a River was a projection onto a river; Fixed River was an installation with a projection onto 15 layers of transparent screens; and Diffusion of River projected through a gallery window and onto the streets. In the repudiation of the cinema space and screen, Yamanaka’s installations highlighted the projection apparatus, its social framework of spectatorship (dispositif) and the spatial circumstances where in which his work was presented, which will be discussed via Japan’s discourse on “space.” (kūkan)
This paper will explore the three incarnations of the River film by Yamanaka Nobuo, a member of the committee, who presented the same footage of a river in different spatial contexts between 1971-1972: To Project a Film of Filmed River on a River was a projection onto a river; Fixed River was an installation with a projection onto 15 layers of transparent screens; and Diffusion of River projected through a gallery window and onto the streets. In the repudiation of the cinema space and screen, Yamanaka’s installations highlighted the projection apparatus, its social framework of spectatorship (dispositif) and the spatial circumstances where in which his work was presented, which will be discussed via Japan’s discourse on “space.” (kūkan)
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After performing his first off-screen projection in 1963, Japanese filmmaker Takahiko Iimura wrote '...in the future we may even see projections onto spherical screens.' (1963: 10) Not only was his vision realised in his own performance... more
After performing his first off-screen projection in 1963, Japanese filmmaker Takahiko Iimura wrote '...in the future we may even see projections onto spherical screens.' (1963: 10) Not only was his vision realised in his own performance Floating (1970), but projections onto balloons also became a familiar sight in Japanese expanded cinema of the late 1960s. In the run-up to the Ōsaka Expo of 1970, industries began to collaborate with artists and architects to establish new forms of pneumatic sculptures and inflatable art, a proposition that crossed over with the search for surfaces of projection beyond the screen by filmmakers. Breaking out of the cinema space, balloon projections took place in gymnasiums, underground discotheques, fashion shows and public parks as the flexibility of inflatables as a sculptural form was exercised by artists exploring alternative spaces and presentational contexts. Merging performance art, sculpture and cinema, projections onto balloons revealed the porosity between film and other media in their exploration of interface between air and light.
This paper will explore in what ways the collision of air art and expanded cinema materialised Japan's understanding of intermedia arts. Entering Japanese art criticism as early as 1966, the word "intermedia" established a platform upon which the inter-relation of things (zentaisei) was theorised, art and technology had met, and the space (kūkan) and experience of art was reevaluated. Through the introduction of works by two Japanese pneumatic artists, Ōnishi Seiji and Isobe Yukihisa, and their collaborations with Japanese and American filmmakers, the paper will investigate how intermedia was understood in Japan to establish interconnections between media whilst rendering them immiscible.
This paper will explore in what ways the collision of air art and expanded cinema materialised Japan's understanding of intermedia arts. Entering Japanese art criticism as early as 1966, the word "intermedia" established a platform upon which the inter-relation of things (zentaisei) was theorised, art and technology had met, and the space (kūkan) and experience of art was reevaluated. Through the introduction of works by two Japanese pneumatic artists, Ōnishi Seiji and Isobe Yukihisa, and their collaborations with Japanese and American filmmakers, the paper will investigate how intermedia was understood in Japan to establish interconnections between media whilst rendering them immiscible.
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[in Japanese]... more
[in Japanese]
万国博覧会前後の日本での映像活動はスクリーンという舞台の中で描かれる物語より、映像の「ディスプレイ」そのものが主役となる傾向が指摘出来る。テレビの一般的な普及も含めて、映画館の外での映像体験が求められるようになっていた。こうした状況の中で1960年代後半に注目を浴びたのは「エキスパンデッド・シネマ」と名付けられた映像を使ったパフォーマンスが一方に、そしてもう一方に映像による環境の創造としての「ディスプレイ」が挙げられる。モントリオール万博やEATなどの海外の事例と同様、その多くは産業との繋がりが強かったため批判の対象ともなったが、今では代表的な扱いをされている。
本発表では以上のような活動とは思想的に共通する面もありつつ、産業とは独立して行われていた映像の「ディスプレイ」の一例として挙げられる「サイケデリック・ ショー」について検討する。幻覚芸術とも名付けられた「サイケデリック」とは映像作家の金坂健二がアメリカから持ち帰ってひろめた現象であり、アンダーグラウンドのディスコで激しい音楽とともに映写機を使ったパフォーマンスを示す。ディスコの個性的な空間、そしてエンターテインメントの場であるからこその観客の独特な受容性も含めて、「サイケデリック・ショー」に関わった人物が映像ディスプレイにどのような可能性を求めたかを追求する。
万国博覧会前後の日本での映像活動はスクリーンという舞台の中で描かれる物語より、映像の「ディスプレイ」そのものが主役となる傾向が指摘出来る。テレビの一般的な普及も含めて、映画館の外での映像体験が求められるようになっていた。こうした状況の中で1960年代後半に注目を浴びたのは「エキスパンデッド・シネマ」と名付けられた映像を使ったパフォーマンスが一方に、そしてもう一方に映像による環境の創造としての「ディスプレイ」が挙げられる。モントリオール万博やEATなどの海外の事例と同様、その多くは産業との繋がりが強かったため批判の対象ともなったが、今では代表的な扱いをされている。
本発表では以上のような活動とは思想的に共通する面もありつつ、産業とは独立して行われていた映像の「ディスプレイ」の一例として挙げられる「サイケデリック・ ショー」について検討する。幻覚芸術とも名付けられた「サイケデリック」とは映像作家の金坂健二がアメリカから持ち帰ってひろめた現象であり、アンダーグラウンドのディスコで激しい音楽とともに映写機を使ったパフォーマンスを示す。ディスコの個性的な空間、そしてエンターテインメントの場であるからこその観客の独特な受容性も含めて、「サイケデリック・ショー」に関わった人物が映像ディスプレイにどのような可能性を求めたかを追求する。
Research Interests:
Whilst painters escaped the gallery space and performance artists rejected the theatre and the stage, Japanese filmmakers of the 1960s-70s sought out ways to present their films outside the established frameworks of the screen and the... more
Whilst painters escaped the gallery space and performance artists rejected the theatre and the stage, Japanese filmmakers of the 1960s-70s sought out ways to present their films outside the established frameworks of the screen and the prescribed viewing positions that come with it. This paper will introduce Shūzō Azuchi Gulliver’s Flying Focus (1969) performed at Rekisen Kōen (park) and Yamanaka Nobuo’s To Project a Film of Filmed River on a River (1971) performed at Tamagawa (river) as two case studies for outdoor film projections that entirely discarded the screen in favour of more volatile surfaces.
The projection performances will be analysed as expanded cinema ‘events’, where an intervention into public spaces will be suggested to channel Alain Badiou’s fidelity to chance that ‘exposes the subject to the chance of a pure Outside.’ Furthermore, the two pieces will be examined in the context of developments in Japanese expanded cinema and recent discussion on intermedia, with a specific focus on the performances’ relationship to space as filmmakers increasingly sought exhibition spaces outside of cinemas. Positioning film within the broader spectrum of the evolution of postwar avant-garde arts, this paper will propose the events, however, resulted in refocusing the apparatus of the cinematic medium by the very act of taking what is usually considered an essential component, in this case the screen, out of its presentational equation.
The projection performances will be analysed as expanded cinema ‘events’, where an intervention into public spaces will be suggested to channel Alain Badiou’s fidelity to chance that ‘exposes the subject to the chance of a pure Outside.’ Furthermore, the two pieces will be examined in the context of developments in Japanese expanded cinema and recent discussion on intermedia, with a specific focus on the performances’ relationship to space as filmmakers increasingly sought exhibition spaces outside of cinemas. Positioning film within the broader spectrum of the evolution of postwar avant-garde arts, this paper will propose the events, however, resulted in refocusing the apparatus of the cinematic medium by the very act of taking what is usually considered an essential component, in this case the screen, out of its presentational equation.
Independence is often claimed yet what it exactly means is rarely explored. For some a call for artistic freedom, a rejection of studio capitulation, and for others an only option, this talk will discuss the meaning of independence in the... more
Independence is often claimed yet what it exactly means is rarely explored. For some a call for artistic freedom, a rejection of studio capitulation, and for others an only option, this talk will discuss the meaning of independence in the context of Japan’s film history and investigate the different incarnations of jishu eiga as an approach and an attitude, with results that vary from avant-garde expressions to escapist entertainment. From Kaneto Shindo’s pioneering Kindai Eiga Kyokai, the emergence of support systems like the Art Theatre Guild and the proliferation of independent cinema in more recent years, the talk will examine alternative networks of distribution and modes of exhibition as much as methods of production whilst investigating what exactly is gained and lost with the decision to turn independent.
Intermediality as a theoretical framework has experienced a resurgence of interest in art historical research in the past few years. Cinema, despite its commonly recognized trait for being a meeting point between the arts, has only very... more
Intermediality as a theoretical framework has experienced a resurgence of interest in art historical research in the past few years. Cinema, despite its commonly recognized trait for being a meeting point between the arts, has only very recently seen publications devoted entirely to its relationship with intermedia (Pethő: 2011). Furthermore, we are also in danger of positioning intermedia as a Euro-American privilege in spite of the wide spectrum of global artistic activity that can be canonized as intermedial practice. It seems pertinent now to position case studies from East Asian cinemas, both in their approach and theorizations, within the discourse of intermedial studies.
Not only has Japan contributed an array of films relevant to the discussion on intermedia, Japan had also participated in the theorization of intermedia early on in its conception. By 1967, only a year after Dick Higgins coined the term, intermedia was discussed in Japanese art journals. Moreover, the understanding of intermedia in Japan (intāmedia) was deeply embedded in cinema and possibilities regarding technology. This paper will analyze the early developments of intermedia in Japan as a theoretical concept and artistic approach with reference to related theories of sōgō geijutsu in existence prior to the arrival of intermedia.
Not only has Japan contributed an array of films relevant to the discussion on intermedia, Japan had also participated in the theorization of intermedia early on in its conception. By 1967, only a year after Dick Higgins coined the term, intermedia was discussed in Japanese art journals. Moreover, the understanding of intermedia in Japan (intāmedia) was deeply embedded in cinema and possibilities regarding technology. This paper will analyze the early developments of intermedia in Japan as a theoretical concept and artistic approach with reference to related theories of sōgō geijutsu in existence prior to the arrival of intermedia.
Research Interests:
Intermediality as a theoretical framework has experienced a resurgence of interest in art historical research in the past few years. Cinema, despite its commonly recognized trait for being a meeting point between the arts, has only very... more
Intermediality as a theoretical framework has experienced a resurgence of interest in art historical research in the past few years. Cinema, despite its commonly recognized trait for being a meeting point between the arts, has only very recently seen publications devoted to its relationship with intermedia (Pethő: 2011). Furthermore, we are also in danger of positioning intermedia as a Euro-American privilege in spite of the wide spectrum of global artistic activity that can be canonized as intermedial practice. It seems pertinent now to position case studies from Asian cinemas, both in their approach and theorizations, within the discourse of intermedial studies.
Not only has Japan contributed an array of films relevant to the discussion on intermedia, Japan had also participated in the theorization of intermedia early on in its conception. By 1967, just two years after Dick Higgins coined the term, intermedia was discussed in Japanese art journals and events were organized with the word in its titles. Uniquely, the Japanese understood intermedia (intāmedia) as uniquely embedded in cinema, in particular, expanded forms of projection. Whilst channeling both recent and more local debates, this presentation will introduce two expanded cinema pieces from Japan, namely Takahiko Iimura’s Screen Play (1963) and Nobuo Yamanaka’s To Project a Film of Filmed River on a River (1971). In these performative projections, the screen was rejected by these artists in favour of more volatile surfaces, such as a human back or a river.
Not only has Japan contributed an array of films relevant to the discussion on intermedia, Japan had also participated in the theorization of intermedia early on in its conception. By 1967, just two years after Dick Higgins coined the term, intermedia was discussed in Japanese art journals and events were organized with the word in its titles. Uniquely, the Japanese understood intermedia (intāmedia) as uniquely embedded in cinema, in particular, expanded forms of projection. Whilst channeling both recent and more local debates, this presentation will introduce two expanded cinema pieces from Japan, namely Takahiko Iimura’s Screen Play (1963) and Nobuo Yamanaka’s To Project a Film of Filmed River on a River (1971). In these performative projections, the screen was rejected by these artists in favour of more volatile surfaces, such as a human back or a river.
Research Interests:
Although film had dominated image-culture as the principal time-based medium, the emergence of video and television began to threaten its position in the 1950s. Despite time being the one of the main factors that connect the three... more
Although film had dominated image-culture as the principal time-based medium, the emergence of video and television began to threaten its position in the 1950s. Despite time being the one of the main factors that connect the three image-based platforms, the treatment of or relationship with time was what differentiated the three mediums. Film and video differ in their approaches to capturing and/or reproducing time and their distinctions were placed into sharpest focus when artists began to incorporate these time-based media into their performance practices that became dubbed as expanded cinema (kakuchō eiga). Although the lucidity and malleability of the media were highlighted through collision in expanded cinema, simultaneously the existence of differences between media was accentuated as one performance utilizing video and another using film produced divergent results.
This paper proposes to discuss the different conceptions of time in Japan’s expanded-cinema performances of the 1960-70s during a period when new developments in image-based technologies resuscitated questions surrounding time in art; simultaneity in the production and dissemination of an image in video and TV advanced conceptions of durational expression and posed renewed questions on the cinematic image. Japanese moving-image artists, including Takahiko Iimura, Rikurō Miyai and Toshio Matsumoto, had strong interactions with the performance-art and underground (angura) theatre scene in the 1960-70s and had begun to incorporate film and projection in theatrical performances, another time-based platform. This paper will outline the emergence of expanded cinema during the period in Japan with specific attention towards the impact of new technologies and the questions of time it brought about, whilst framing it within more recent theoretical discussions on intermedia.
This paper proposes to discuss the different conceptions of time in Japan’s expanded-cinema performances of the 1960-70s during a period when new developments in image-based technologies resuscitated questions surrounding time in art; simultaneity in the production and dissemination of an image in video and TV advanced conceptions of durational expression and posed renewed questions on the cinematic image. Japanese moving-image artists, including Takahiko Iimura, Rikurō Miyai and Toshio Matsumoto, had strong interactions with the performance-art and underground (angura) theatre scene in the 1960-70s and had begun to incorporate film and projection in theatrical performances, another time-based platform. This paper will outline the emergence of expanded cinema during the period in Japan with specific attention towards the impact of new technologies and the questions of time it brought about, whilst framing it within more recent theoretical discussions on intermedia.
The presentation will introduce intermedia and expanded cinema experiments that were conducted in Japan during the 1960s-1970s and place Terayama's film/performance works within these contexts.
In the preservation and dissemination of the historical avant-garde through curatorial projects, the dialogue that occurs among different artistic media is often neglected.1 Despite the diversity within what is considered the avant-garde... more
In the preservation and dissemination of the historical avant-garde through curatorial projects, the dialogue that occurs among different artistic media is often neglected.1 Despite the diversity within what is considered the avant-garde canon, one of the characteristics that tied together the movements within the historical avant-garde was how their experiments went beyond the scope of a single medium and instead built relationships of reciprocation between artistic expressions that are usually considered separate. In an attempt to challenge existing frameworks for creating and presenting art, the artists that were positioned in the peripheries of artistic genres looked beyond their own habits and traditions for progressive influence. Avant-garde artists communicated and collaborated with those who worked in other media, harnessing the porosity between distinct art forms for creative inspiration by integration, imitation, or usurpation. Arguably irreducible and resistant to empirical definition, such artistic dialogue has complicated archival and curatorial endeavors to categorize artistic practice in coherent and self-contained units. In consequence, this dialogue has often been neglected.2 Indeed, the practical dilemmas for curators are complex—how do we begin to arrange books, poems, theater, live performances, dance, film, and video, as well as indicate the conduits of their influence and interconnections, within a singular spatial framework? The possible solutions are manifold. Nevertheless, a complication emerges when we attempt to negotiate the preservation of works that were created to agitate precisely these concerns. How are we to curate art that was made with the purpose of resisting categorization and documentation?