“Improvisation’s only life is in the present. Improvisation cannot be saved, recorded, documented, or otherwise participate in the circulation of representations of representations: once it does so, it becomes something other than Improvisation. To the degree that Improvisation attempts to enter the economy of reproduction it betrays and lessens the promise of its own ontology. Improvisation being, like the ontology of subjectivity proposed here, becomes itself through disappearance”
-Wass, 2019
“Performance’s only life is in the present. Performance cannot be saved, recorded, documented, or otherwise participate in the circulation of representations of representations: once it does so, it becomes something other than performance. To the degree that performance attempts to enter the economy of reproduction it betrays and lessens the promise of its own ontology. Performance’s being, like the ontology of subjectivity proposed here, becomes itself through disappearance.”
-Phelan, Peggy. Unmarked : The Politics of Performance. London: Routledge, 2003.