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The Pontydian Performance: the performative layer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2009

Franziska Schroeder*
Affiliation:
Sonic Arts Research Centre, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, BT7 1NN
Pedro Rebelo*
Affiliation:
Sonic Arts Research Centre, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, BT7 1NN

Abstract

In this paper we reflect on the performer–instrument relationship by turning towards the thinking practices of the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961). Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological idea of the body as being at the centre of the world highlights an embodied position in the world and bestows significance onto the body as a whole, onto the body as a lived body. In order to better understand this two-way relationship of instrument and performer, we introduce the notion of the performative layer, which emerges through strategies for dealing with discontinuities, breakdowns and the unexpected in network performance.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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