The Board Game as Performance. Reflections on the Process of Creating “El candidato (o candidata)”

Abstract

Drawing on the creative process of the El candidato (o candidata), a piece based on a board game, I focus on the performativity inherent in games and how it can be transferred to the design of a performance device.

Through Eiermann and Fischer-Lichte, I explore the similarities between game and scenic realisation, and propose applying the concept of device to the understanding of theatrical development. Understanding a scenic realisation as a device enables us to analyse it as a set of power relations between participants, without any a priori distinction between actants and spectators. I emphasise the technological dimension of the apparatus as presented by Agamben, where the rules have the function of both restricting and enhancing the freedom of participants. This dynamic is paradigmatically exemplified in the dialectical tension between rules and uncertainty that we find in games.

In tracing the political implications, I explore a number of aspects that are characteristic of participatory artistic formats. I propose a distinction between a representative and a performative point of view, as well as between game and play, and I rely on the binomial formulated by Rancière between politics and police to analyse the power relations at stake in a performance, and detect whether their ludic components are used to create spaces of freedom or to deploy pre-programmed results. In addition to drawing on my practice, I comment on pieces by Rirkrit Tiravanija, Rimini Protokoll, LIGNA, Kate McIntosh, and Mónica Rikić to exemplify different degrees of audience agency.