Association Area is a recording of an exercise close to ESP. Vito Acconci uses this term for performances designed as laboratory experiments on perception, intuition and concentration, by isolating one or more senses (hearing, sight or touch) and speech.

At the beginning of the video, Vito Acconci and Mel (Doug Waterman) blindfold their eyes and block their ears before spinning round and round to mix up the spatial markers they have memorized. In this way, they partially state the constraint which they have set themselves. The process, the aim and the other conditions of the experiment performed in Association Area are deduced as the tape is played, particularly in the discrepancy between the image and the voiceover. For sixty minutes, they move around within the field of vision, trying, intuitively, to perceive the space and the presence of the other. This process is clear in the slow, concentrated movements during which the two actors occasionally adopt the same position or posture.

The voiceover is a monologue recorded after the performance in which Vito Acconci announces orders and intentions: "Vito, Mel is crouching", "Stand still, Mel !". The use of the indicative underlines the information which the protagonists lack in order to be able to imitate one another, while the imperative highlights the idea of control over oneself, the other or the situation which could not occur. The soundtrack provides a verbal translation of the visual information lacking to the performers, which limited the achievement of their defined aim: to move around within a space while imitating one another.

Assessment of this video is complex. On the one hand, the spectators feel as if they have been called on to witness a work which only benefits the actors, since intuition can only be experienced in the first person. On the other hand, they feel involved because they are being asked for understanding through deduction.

Thérèse Beyler