Performance as Spime, or Spime Specific Art

A work of art may characterised as site specific if it is planned for and installed on a specific place. A work of performance art, though, has a well defined duration in time, as well as a place and we need to find an expression for its qualities relative to space and time. The Latin American philosopher Ivan Illich coined the expression vernacular spime to describe the intimate relation between local language and the situation and tradition they are used in. The word spime itself was coined by Einstein as a denominator for space time. Further, Bruce Sterling, in 2004 used the term to designate an informational object of a specific kind:

The next stage is an object that does not exist yet. It needs a noun, so that we can think about it. We can call it a "Spime," which is a neologism for an imaginary object that is still speculative. A Spime also has a kind of person who makes it and uses it, and that kind of person is somebody called a "Wrangler." At the moment, you are end-using Gizmos. My thesis here, my prophesy to you, is that, pretty soon, you will be wrangling Spimes.

The most important thing to know about Spimes is that they are precisely located in space and time. They have histories. They are recorded, tracked, inventoried, and always associated with a story.

Spimes have identities, they are protagonists of a documented process.

They are searchable, like Google. You can think of Spimes as being auto-Googling objects.

ur When Blobjects Rule the Earth by Bruce Sterling, 2004

Now, look at the performance artwork as a spime and you will discern some possibilities, and challenges which are seminal to performance artworks as informational objects. Performance artworks are spime specific, therefore they are also potentially in need of a definition as Spimes in order to be handled adequately in the emerging perspectives on future art.