In her work Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship, Claire Bishop (2012) coins the term ‘delegated performance’ (219). This type of work is where the art is made by spectators of or participants in the work, who are ‘keen to perform aspects of their identity’, but are not as directed as they would be in a traditional performance (Bishop 2012: 220). Maurizio Cattelan, the creator of the aforementioned toilet, America, was a proponent of this art form: those visiting the toilet used the toilet. Their defecation was a performance; they were creating art.
Delegated performance is centred on the participation of the non-professional, but in practice, it is primarily achieved through the hiring of those from lower socio-economic backgrounds (Bishop 2012). While we have no indication of the socio-economic status of the visitors to Scrape Elegy, in comparison to big tech and its oligarchs, the performers are the everyperson. In each six-minute performance, they hear their own work and connect with it, despite the platform having ownership over their life’s work.
This art form ties the strands of participatory multimedia art together. The visitors to Scrape Elegy are performers in their own show, their input (via their Instagram captions) forming an essential component of the sound journey and thus of the work itself. Indeed, without delegated performance, Scrape Elegy would not be the work it becomes for the visitors.