A thought: the difference between ART and MANIPULATION is that art happens in real time, evolving and changing and making decisions as they are happening, while manipulation is carefully crafted, held together rigidly, aimed at achieving a particular (desired) result.
In forms like literature, visual arts, curating: changes (development, evolution) happen in the process of making and then they leave a material trace, product which again comes to life in real time through contact with a reader/viewer.
Performing arts (music, theater/dance) have the added dimension of process of re-creation, re-living, re-making it in real time and space in front of the audience – in immaterial sensual space. In choreography the artist-performer is somehow making the same decisions like new (demands sensitivity to space, time, humans, your own constantly changing physical and mental processes).
With technological arts: video, photograpy, sampled music… the art is in the decisions you make in the process of recording and in the second process of editing. Similar to visual arts/literature. The initial (point of) view choices, and the fine-tuning afterward – crafting. Then the contact with viewer/listener, of course.
Telling a story LIVE is an ancient art. Not unlike performance because the structure is there but changes shifts adapts to situation. Communication practices (like teaching) are more coarse/unrefined than the sensitivity that occurs in performance. Recognition of, awareness of detail.
“It’s hard to think about the present without thinking about the past because the past glows.” – Rirkrit Tiravanija
