This exposition presents and explores all the creative process related to the performance Espelho meu, premiered in March 2017, in Porto, Portugal. From its assumptions and creative contextualization, we deepen our reflection and explore a possible outcome materialized in this work. It's the materialization of a creative thought, a creative process, into the artistic gesture of the performer. We believe that the creation of new performances is the only effective way to develop the contemporary performative scene. New performances that raise questions and multiple layers of understanding promoting new visions of the world and new possibilities. In this paper, we will briefly discuss the role of improvisation in the process of creating a vocal gesture that externalizes an inner thought, the role of the body and the energy of the performance, the non-imposed but important interaction with the audience, the relevance of the text as semantical and sound object, the choice of the concept mirror and its symbolical impact, the cross paths between artistic practice and technology and the artistic exploration of the performance after its physical existence in time, consolidated in the performative resonance as a creative tool to stretch time and to provocate the ephemerality of performance.

PERFORMATIVE RESONANCE

In the performative resonance, performance is used as a raw material for its own transformation, functioning as the thematic material that will be shaped in a new temporal linearity, a new sequence of nows (as Heidegger would call it), a new spatio-temporal relationship with the overlapping of past fragments of time, recombined, transformed, filtered, creating a "zone" (Gil, 2004) of the result of the set of micro-perceptions that model the macro perception of the experience.

This experience, controlled by the interaction of the micro-perceptions, allows the existence of new layers of the macro perception of each instant and, as such, allows the construction of a new and unique present.

This interesting feature challenges the works to an exercise of reinvention of a stretched time.

This reinvention leads to the metamorphosis of the performance into an installation, or in any other format, identified here by the concept of performative resonance.

It is, basically, to exploit the potential of a non-linear time that is more conducive to translate a thought that is also non-linear.

The ephemerality of a performance’s linear time and the (re)enablement of its distention through the conceptual and experimental manipulation of time is tested and explored through the performative resonance.

Time serves as a tool to create a work of metamorphic character that reacts to the course of time, reacts to the space that receives it and reacts to the context that embraces it.

Considering the performative moment as an exercise in building a physicality of an elastic thought we advocate the importance of an identical elasticity of time in the conceptualization of a performance.

Byung-Chul Han (2016) considers that thought "has a particular temporality and spatiality" (p.129). The thought runs non-linearly and reaches this freedom precisely because it is not possible to calculate the time and the space where it develops itself.

If this is the case, time, the environment in which the same thought is effective, where it acquires body, must also be free and tendentially discontinuous, not because it must be, but only because it is naturally like that when it accepts its mission to welcome thought.

In Espelho meu we consider an elastic time, conceptually non-linear, which leads us to a place where the body of the performer becomes time.

A space-time that feels no need to be measured or to be aligned. A space-time other that is expected to be able, given its elasticity and complicity, to transform the expected context into another context that is reflected in the space-temporality of the immanence of the work.

This concept of performative resonance can earn even more interest if we consider the difficulty of preserving the performances through documents that capture the ephemeral nature of the performative works.

However, this documentation is naturally incomplete, since core issues are lost at the level of spatio-temporal experience and the original context.

The performative resonance allows the creator himself to manage the work and its presentation / representation in a coherent way.

Is it possible to think of a work that is conceptualized without an end? Or a resonance, more or less long, that extends its ephemerality?

Is it possible to propose a work that already considers its metamorphosis in time? That considers, from the scratch, a form of self-preservation? That considers its own re-enactment? Is it possible to act on the tension of the ephemeral temporality of a performance by stretching it out in a perspective of extending the ephemeral moment of the physical performance and where the performer's presence may not be materially constructed?

Although apparently subsidiary to performance, yet the resonance keeps the tension and the performative drive.

Returning to the fruition perspective of the performative resonance, we prefer to consider that the public's experience in relation to it is managed by the auditor himself who makes decisions about the time of contact with the resonance of the work, thus presenting a greater degree of openness within the concept of open work, consolidated by Umberto Eco (1991).

In Espelho meu, the work is structured in 3 performances that resonate, which means that the second live performance already interacts with the resonance of the first live performance and consequently the third live performance will happen with a cumulative result of the performative resonance of the first and second performances.

Thus, the performance generates its own resonance and receives it later as a performance itself.

A spiral is created that reuses, at a higher level, the same thematic material that, due to the temporal mismatch, acquires a new meaning and impacts differently the development of improvisation and performance.

This spiral concept of three performances and respective resonances points, conceptual and symbolically, to a possibility of infinite metamorphosis of the work, building in layers, a work other.

It can then be concluded that performative resonance arises as a concrete response to the challenge of managing the relation of time with the artistic object by removing the limitation of linearity and the duration of chronological time which, when imposing itself, conduces to a deterioration of a freer conception of the work.

Performance time is explored in a creative and elastic perspective, breaking, as stated before, the linearity of time. The output of this action can assume the format of a performance or installation.

This said, we consider having found a relevant instrument, to be explored creatively, within the framework of performative creation. This can also allow the creator to extend the ephemerality of the performance or even consider this extension as a constitution of its own archive.

The performative resonance, when one opts for its use, directly impacts the design of the work, since it transforms the temporal relation of what is performatively drawn.

In a slightly more pragmatic way, this performative resonance, which can be concretized in an installation, is an appealing way of attracting more attention from the museums (or other institutions) that may not yet be fully committed to integrating performance into their collections. With this output, they may have an integrated and physical object to include in their collection and present an even wider range of artistic representations to their audiences.

We believe this is important but, in our view, should not influence the creative process.

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PERFORMATIVE RESONANCE