Performance Philosophy (E-Journal)
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On Performative Philosophy – 10 impulses for discussion from [soundcheck philosophie]
Get PDFSince 2011, the philosophy-performance festival, [soundcheck philosophie] has been gathering protagonists in German-speaking countries, who seek and intend to cultivate a certain practice in philosophy. This practice takes philosophy - focussing not only on written texts but also on the fundamental oral situations that take place within pilosophy - and presents it artistically and/or through media. In this context. The term ‘Performative Philosophy’ is meant as a working concept for finding criteria and developing contemporary expressions and forms of doing pilosophy. The [soundcheck philosophie] festival and the association responsible for it, Expedition Philosophie / Internationale Gesellschaft für Performative Philosophie, are understood as a forum for discourse. The 10 theses at the end of this article are intended to initiate discussion. Informed by the well-known yet unique structure of an oral conversation, where a lot of things are mentioned out of context and the topic often remains to be discovered, we would also like to contribute impulses for conversation. With this in mind, we have incorporated 10 conversational impulses that answer, tell, ask, state, chat, riddle and reflect about the undertaking of the project of Performative Philosophy
The Philosopher as Stage-Hand
Get PDFIf the philosopher has an analogue in the theatre, perhaps it is not with the performer, the one who shows, but with the stage-hand, the one who sets the stage. This is not, as some might argue, because the stage-hand has some special access to what is behind-the-scenes, or because she knows that what is on-stage is only illusion. The stage-hand’s work is not hidden. It is exactly the opposite: the work is there for all to see. It is because it is there that all can see. It is the work that makes the seeing possible
The Contemporary Quarrel Between Performance and Literature? Reflections on Performance (and) Philosophy
Get PDFThis article argues for an understanding of performance as being motivated by a principle of autotelicity that suspends all considerations other than those of the performance itself as it unfolds in creative free play. It is argued that it is this ‘principle of performance’ that underpinned Plato’s rejection of poetry in favour of philosophy, in a foundational, mutually definitional rupture that he characterises as stemming from an ancient quarrel. This principle of performance survived both in and beyond philosophical discourse. It can, as this paper argues, be understood as being at work in the idealised conception of ‘literature’ that developed during the ‘theory’ explosion of the 1960s and 70s, as in institution that is, at least potentially, capable of saying anything. This article asks whether Performance Philosophy risks either undermining the principle of performance by making it subservient to the project of philosophy (and thereby reiterating Plato’s foundational move), or whether it hopes to put that principle to work philosophically in a way that does not limit it (and thereby reinscribe the recent but apparently exhausted ideals of the theory explosion, substituting ‘literature’ with ‘performance’). Either way, it is claimed, there may be important genealogical work for Performance Philosophy to do
The Performer as Philosopher and Diplomat of Dissensus: Thinking and Drinking Tea with Benjamin Verdonck in Bara/ke (2000)
Get PDFEcology and activism is a burning issue in theatre and performance studies. However, following the French philosopher Bruno Latour, a radically new encounter with ecology is needed today, if eco-activism still wants to have a future. It seems that, in order to survive, eco-activism and eco-art have to move beyond their narrow and limited anthropocentric perspective. In this paradigm shift, the performer as philosopher – in the sense of a diplomat of dissensus – might play an important role. The Flemish artist and performer Benjamin Verdonck picks up this role of a performer as philosopher. In his artistic tree houses, Verdonck invites passers-by for coffee or tea and gently raises ecological issues. He performs protest as what I call “a diplomat of dissensus”, combining Latour’s writings on contemporary ecology and the function of the diplomat therein, and Jacques Rancière’s writings on dissensus and art in public space. Ecology, for its part, moves into the direction of what Félix Guattari in The Three Ecologies refers to as “the ethico-aesthetic aegis of an ecosophy” (Guattari 2000, 41), a contraction of ecology and philosophy that connects the environmental with a reflection on the psychic production of subjectivity and social relations
Punk Women and Riot Grrls
Get PDFThis paper deals with feminist cultural politics, nomadic thought and media activism. It combines theoretical insights from Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy with Riot Grrrl bands and women’s punk music. The paper explores two central aspects of the Pussy Riot’s performances: the visual and the musical. The visual includes an analysis of “the face” as a landscape of both power and resistance and discusses also the function of the mask as a cultural and political device. It then highlights the role of iconic images like Queen Beatrix, Angela Davies, the Guerrilla Girls and others in popular culture. The musical component includes Janis Joplin, the ultimate Riot Grrrl band Bikini Kill, Nina Hagen and, of course, Pussy Riot. Embodying the slogan “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution” the paper argues for an affirmative and creative approach to feminist theory and practice and to contemporary cultural politics.
Missing the Wrong Target: On Andrew Bowie’s Rejection of the Philosophy of Music
Get PDFAndrew Bowie rejects the philosophy of music. He does so because it (allegedly) objectifies music and because it (allegedly) only ever affirms the practitioner’s prior philosophical assumptions. I argue that Bowie’s rejection is illegitimate on two counts. First, he mischaracterises the philosophy of music. I show how. Second, even if his characterisation of the philosophy of music were a faithful representation of that discipline, his reasons for rejecting it would still not be sufficient. In particular, Bowie criticises the philosophy of music for not engaging properly with its ‘other’ (music), yet refuses to engage seriously with his own ‘other’ (the philosophy of music). Bowie aims for the wrong target – and misses anyway
Doing Life Is That Which We Must Think
Get PDFDeclaration of belief:Performance Philosophers seek to think anew, not only for the fun of it but also to destroy (or at least artfully ignore) the well-tended perception that thinking must unfold in a certain way, through specific channels, and with the legitimacy bequeathed to thought (i.e., commodified thought; a kind of thought that might be trademarked) through validated keywords and slogans. For these reasons, Performance Philosophers seek to think the doing of life, with the expectation that to do so would mean to live a life worthy of the name. This manifesto elaborates on these claims and calls for the creation of an Invisible College through which we might express the potential of performance philosophy
The Processes of Eavesdropping: Where Tragedy, Comedy and Philosophy Converge
Get PDFEavesdropping scenes, where one of the characters eavesdrops or spies on one or several of the other characters (usually with the knowledge of at least one of them) will serve as my point of departure for exploring the relations between tragedy, comedy and philosophy. The eavesdropper is a spectator inside the fictional world who because of what he (and most frequently it is a male) learns by eavesdropping or just by carrying out this act of transgression is transformed into a victim. I exemplify with Polonius (in Hamlet, III, 4) and Orgon (in Tartuffe, IV, 5), who are physically situated in a focal (liminal) point where the eavesdroppers become vulnerable and can quickly be transformed from tragic to comic figures and vice versa, transgressing the generic borderlines between tragedy, melodrama, comedy and farce. There are also many instances where philosophical discourses originate from an eavesdropping situation, the most obvious being the form of teaching practiced by Pythagoras, lecturing to his students from behind a curtain. My article also examines examples of eavesdropping in the writings of Plato and Walter Benjamin
Encountering Worlds: Performing In/As Philosophy in the Ecological Age
Get PDFWithin the context of the ‘Anthropocene’, the current geological epoch marked by the impact of human activity on terrestrial ecosystems and geological formations, this article considers the ways in which the ecological blurring of boundaries between ‘Nature’ and ‘Culture’ might affect existing ontologies of performance. Departing from Richard Bauman’s definition of performance as both communication and enactment, we will use the postulates of Graham Harman’s Object-Oriented Ontology to speculate on what performance might mean beyond the human/nonhuman divide. Ultimately, it will be claimed, performance, understood as both enactment and unveiling, is at the core of all encounters between all bodies and irrespective of their perceived nature. As a result, the world must once again be thought as theatrum mundi, as a stage where bodies always encounter one another through the contingency of the personae they play, personae that nonetheless are unable to exhaust the full being of the bodies behind them
What Is Philo-Performance? A roundtable
Get PDFThis article is an edited transcript of the roundtable entitled “What is Philo-Performance?” that took place in Paris on 28 June 2014, within the framework of the “Theatre, Performance, Philosophy International Conference: Crossings and Transfers in Anglo-American Thought”. The conference was organized by Julien Alliot, Flore Garcin-Marrou, Liza Kharoubi and Anna Street from the LAPS, a French research group on performance philosophy