Conceived and executed during the 2020 lockdown in the UK “[Absence/Presence]” is our second remote communication relay. In this performance a D R O S S documenter recorded images at XXXXX a live event in which invigilators were absent. These images were then sent in sequence to a D R O S S member at another location where they were printed and cut, and then had the image of an invigilator pasted on to the document. The resulting collage was then forwarded by the printer to a D R O S S interpreter elsewhere where they were received and performed as a live online commentary with each image concluding with a short text. The documenter was then informed by text message that this part of the relay was complete, and then the process was repeated until the live event drew to a close. Once concluded, the D R O S S printer then collates, reprints, and binds the completed images and texts thereby creating a zine. In solidarity with the workers at Tate who are conspicuously absent from their galleries both on and offline, this action is appended by a set of limited edition postcards.

“[Absence/Presence]” responds to both the absence of work for casual gallery staff due to the closure of institutions during the pandemic, and to the presence of numerous exhibitions and live events taking advantage of this vacuum by staging events on and offline that require no workers. Developed as a strategy to examine the relationship between subjectivation and the performative, this intervention draws attention to the presence of artist invigilators, or in this case while in an indefinite hiatus, their absence.