living art - Tino Sehgal in the Turbine Hall

Can something experiential be art, without any longstanding existence? The evidence will only be in people's memories, and to some extent cameras. But they can never capture the whole experience and the uncertainty in the audience about whether what they were seeing was art...British born german artist Tino Sehgal offers the ultimate challenge. When we entered the gigantic space of the turbine hall, there were a few people sitting around on the sloping floor. We walked towards the far end through empty space and as we turned round to return we were faced with an army of 'artists' all walking backwards in unison. We could walk through and round them... but it seemed that the visitors waited along the edges of this space, while the troupe started walking forwards again, at an agonisingly slow pace. We had heard stories about the 'artists' interacting with the public and I observed one artist breaking free from the group and talking to the family beside me. I tried to eavesdrop but he turned his back to me, so I figured his story was for that family only... We walked back slowly disappointed, when we were approached by an older American man, who 'told' us a story about his parents - it was very complete and somewhat scripted - but it was delivered in a soliloquoy and in a way that we were not able to ask the obvious questions or to engage with him in any way! o well Later in the day we saw the 'actors' running around between the visitors, who seemed to be ignoring them. Then they congregated again and began a long and systematic chant which seemed to turn the darkened hall into an old cathedral... It was really a thoughtful experience - how was this art? how do you charge for this? how much creative freedom do the actors have? and finally how will this all be remembered?