(G)hosting; or, a way of continuing for performance-based works

This paper addresses ways of continuing (living on) for (artistic) works that rely on performative situations in their manifestations and/or modes of dissemination, by focusing on the case of Modus Operandi AnD (a complex work devised by Brazilian artist and anthropologist Fernanda eugenio and, during an initial period of collaboration, Portuguese choreographer João Fiadeiro). A five-year fieldwork research, following an auto-ethnographic perspective grounded on close observation and co-performative engagement, led to the recognition of the role played by memory, embodiment, and reactivation in the construction of a living archive (moving constellation of body-archives). The term (g)hosting is offered as the operation which glues together the group that becomes a non-identitarian community of practitioners. (G)hosting is considered, following the Duchampian proposition “a guest + a host = a ghost”, a contraction of guesting and hosting, implicating the dimensions of hospitality and parasitism. Users become metonymic extensions, carriers and keepers contributing to an ever-unfolding continuation.