Live Doc—Performativity and Documentality in Brazilian Live Cinema Experimental Works

This article examines the emergence of live doc as a performative modality of documentary practice within Brazilian experimental live cinema. While live cinema has been widely recognized as an expanded audiovisual form, its intersections with documentary practices in Brazil remain under-theorized. Drawing on the concept of documentality, particularly as articulated by Hito Steyerl, this study investigates how archival, testimonial, and reality-based images are activated through real-time audiovisual manipulation. Through close analysis of three Brazilian performances—Sequenze (Raimo Benedetti 2010), Are We Doing Right? Remix (Embolex 2013), and O Pianista Fracassado (Manuel Pessoa de Lima 2018)—the article argues that documentality and performativity operate in productive tension. Rather than stabilizing documentary material into fixed representation, live doc reconfigures the real as an event, exposing it to contingency, co-presence, and recomposition in the present moment. By situating these works within a Global South context, the study contributes to broader debates on documentary, performance, and expanded audiovisual practices.