Camera/Action: Performance and Photography

There is so much to address and consider in using photography and/or video as documentation of live performance that the entire issue becomes controversial. I think many people realize that photographic stills of a sequence of actions cannot possibly express a performance in its entirety, but tends to strive for representation of significant or representational moments. Videos can perhaps give a more complete visual and auditory experience than what photographs can offer. However, it is still lacking in the experience of the physical body being in the space that is offered to the audience. Just as Hayley Newman suggests with her "documents," documentation can be easily fabricated to look as if a performance occurred. Fabrication through video is an odd topic because the performer is still required to perform a cohesive and continuous performance instead of freezing in a moment of it. So what happens when audience participation and reaction is faked in the documentation? It's easy to say that our methods of documentation are not sufficient, but without it, who would ever know what has been conducted and explored already? No one should suggest that images and audio recreate a performance, but act as supplements along with words to describe it. This allows others to refer back to these performances and build on pre-existing concepts, advancing art in different directions, as it is inevitable.
Chris Burden is an artist originating from the early 70's whose idea of performance art involves purposeful danger to oneself, kind of like a stunt. Except stunts usually involve entertaining the audience at the expense of the stunts person while Chris Burden does not aim to entertain the audience, but to focus on the imminent danger and pain itself and revoke emotion from the audience. His performances are unnecessarily tortuous and masochistic.
Here's a link containing short descriptions of performances done by Chris Burden:
http://www.virtualvenice.info/visual/burden.htm
Also, in the second half of this page, there's a cool picture of Chris Burden's Doorway to Heaven where he pushed live wires into his chest and a painful image of him crawling on his belly over broken glass with his hands bound:
http://www.geocities.com/bakija6/artists.html