Presence at a distance: Alastair MacLennan and performing drawing in lockdown

How can the liveness of performance be sustained through mediated presence? How can performance artists reach audiences at times of physical isolation? What are the inherent difficulties and opportunities within performance art that curators can draw upon to respond to these questions after the COVID-19 pandemic? In response to these questions Judit Bodor discusses her approach – in collaboration with Adam Lockhart – to curating Scottish performance artist Alastair MacLennan's new body of performance drawing, LIM(I)NAL, using the artist’s archive website hosted by the University of Dundee. Looking at a range of ways that performance is mediated and materialised through exploring MacLennan’s central notion of ‘actuation’, Bodor situates the online exhibition within broader critical and curatorial approaches to liveness. The chapter concludes by reflecting upon the extent to which literal notion of liveness applied to performance art might disguise the fluidity and serendipity at the heart of MacLennan's practice which enforces, not distracts, from the holistic core and outlook of his work