Meaning in the Midst of Performance

Borrowing concepts from cognitive philosophy and bringing them into a conversation with critical theory, Gareth White sharply examines meaning as a process that happens to us as we are engaged in the problems and negotiations of a participatory performance.

Being an audience participant can be a confusing and contradictory experience. When a performance requires us to do things, we are put in the situation of being both actor and spectator, of being part of the work of art while also being the audience who receives it, and of being both perceiving subject and aesthetic object. This book examines these contradictions - and many others - as they appear by accident and by design in increasingly popular forms of interactive, immersive, and participatory performance in theatre and live art.

Borrowing concepts from cognitive philosophy and bringing them into a conversation with critical theory, Gareth White sharply examines meaning as a process that happens to us as we are engaged in the problems and negotiations of a participatory performance.

This study will be of great interest to scholars and students of theatre and performance, intermedial arts and games studies, and to practising artists.

Autorentext

Gareth White is Reader in Theatre and Performance at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, UK.

Inhalt

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 Watching, doing, meaning

Contradiction 1: Watching

Contradiction 2: Action

Contradiction 3: Body

2 Other people/other things

Contradiction 4: Object

Contradiction 5: Affect

Contradiction 6: Play

3 Autonomy/Identity

Contradiction 7: Authenticity

Contradiction 8: Mediation

Contradiction 9: Identity

Conclusion. Culture, crisis, aesthetics

Contradiction 10: Culture

Contradiction 11: A Post Covid Coda

Index