Schechner, R. (2002). Performance studies: An introduction. London: Routledge. pp.123-168.
Schechner on ch. 5 'Performativity' discusses the theories on performativity by
Austin,
'To say something is to something'
'Performatives uttered under false are unhappy and infelicitous ( <--- Theatre)
and Derrida,
'all utternances are infelicitous. speech in theatre is 'determined modification' of a general iterability.
'succesful performative = impure performative'
He then moves to 'reality TV and beyond'.
Heisenberg's indeterminacy theory: observation affects outcome.
'does the ubiquity of the looking eye make the world into one vast prison? (p.129)
post modernism
application of 'performance principle' to all aspects of social and artistic life.
'power depends on the optimization of the performance'. J.F. Lyotard
simulation
represenation ends and reproduction takes over
replication of itself as another
copy <=> original ----------authenticity?
poststructuralism / deconstruction
academic response to postmodernism
bases for academic theories of performativity
everything in flux
how is knowledge manufactured?
'restored behavior enacted not on stage but in 'real life' is what poststructuralists call a performance' (p.166).
constructions of gender
gender & race = performative.---? cultural construct
'one's biological sex is raw meterial shaped through practice into the socially constructed performance that is gender' (p.151) Butler.
Austin, J. (1962). How to do things with words. Oxford University Press: London,
pp.1-38 & 83-131
• What is the difference between descriptive and performative ? Does this distinction
hold?
• What is the difference between describing and performing, representing and
presenting ?
• What is the relation between reality and fiction?
• So far in your reading, how can you relate to the word performative as coined by
Austin to the way it is usually used in your community?
THEORISTS
John L. Austin (26 March 1911 – 8 February 1960)
was a British philosopher of language and leading proponent of ordinary language philosophy, perhaps best known for developing the theory of speech acts.
John Searle
American philosopher best known for his work in the philosophy of language especially speech act theory and the philosophy of mind. He also made significant contributions to epistemology, ontology, the philosophy of social institutions, and the study of practical reason.
ARTISTS
Allan Kaprow
(August 23, 1927 – April 5, 2006) was an American painter, assemblagist and a pioneer in establishing the concepts of performance art. His Happenings — some 200 of them — evolved over the years. Eventually Kaprow shifted his practice into what he called "Activities", intimately scaled pieces for one or several players, devoted to the study of normal human activity in a way congruent to ordinary life. Fluxus, performance art, and installation art were, in turn, influenced by his work.
Gonzalo Díaz
is a Chilean Postwar & Contemporary artist who was born in 1947. Their work was featured in several exhibitions at key galleries and museums, including the Proa Foundation and the Daros Exhibitions, Latinamerica.
Adrian Margaret Smith Piper
(born September 20, 1948) is an American conceptual artist and philosopher. Her work addresses how and why those involved in more than one discipline may experience professional ostracism, otherness, racial passing, and racism by using various traditional and non-traditional media to provoke self-analysis.
Solomon "Sol" LeWitt
(September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) was an American artist, regarded as a founder of both Minimal and Conceptual art.
LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and "structures" but was prolific in a wide range of media including drawing, printmaking, photography, painting, installation, and artist's books.
Marcel Duchamp
(28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French-American painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. , Duchamp wanted to use art to serve the mind. He broke down the boundaries between works of art and everyday objects.
Barbara Kruger
is an American Conceptual artist known for her combination of type and image that conveys a direct feminist cultural critique. Her works examine stereotypes and the behaviors of consumerism with text layered over mass-media images.
Bruce Nauman
is an American Conceptual artist working in a wide array of media that includes neon lights, video, and performance. A central figure of 1970s art and pioneer in the development of Post-Minimal art, Nauman’s greatest contribution is perhaps his self-analytic investigations of the creative mind and its doubts concerning the production of art. “If I was an artist and I was in the studio, then whatever I was doing in the studio must be art,” he once remarked.
CONCEPTS
Performative / Constative (Descriptive)
Are the acts that are born through the utterance of certain uses of language. Any distiction between them is considered by Austin, an illussion.
A constative act just declares a fact.
A performative act is when the words themselves act their meaning. When they have the power to exist in companion to gestures, other words or symbols, but they have the upper hand. They are seperated ub felicitous and infelicitous.
Felicity
A felicious performative utterance, has a conventional procedure, is characterized by appropriatness, correctness and completeness, has an intention and is conducted subsequently.
Serious/ Non Serious
The "non-serious," is he "parasitic," the etiolations," the "non-ordinary" (and with them the general theory which in accounting for these oppositions no longer would be governed by them).
Speech Act
Speech acts serve their function once they are said or communicated. Their utterance brings action at the same time.
-->examples of acts: apologizing, promising, ordering, answering, requesting, complaining, warning, inviting, refusing, and congratulating.
There are 3 levels: locutionary- illocutionary- perlocutionary.
Illicution/ Perlocution
An illicutionary act is the contextual function of the act. (by saying to someone to stop, you are warning them to stop).
Perlocutionary are the results of the act upon the listener. (by warning them, you alerted them before they fell in the hole).
Fiction
Parasitic utterance