The term “performance art” refers to a type of artistic action where artists represent themselves in the acts they perform. Everything that is said or done is not intended to serve a fictional story, but is “here and now”. There is no symbolic displacement of space or actors. Performance art deals with reality head on, as it is, and not in order to do something else with it.

The English word “performance” generally refers to a show or artistic performance in front of an audience. However, since the 1960s, “performance” has also been used to refer to a specific art form.