The Rituals of Walking and Flying: Public Participatory Events at Actor's Lab

Extract

I am in a state of culture shock. When this way of naming my state occurred to me, I thought it metaphoric. Now I do not. I have decided that the Public Participatory Event (PPE) was a nascent community, a subculture appearing as an event. An event is more ephemeral than the network of structures we call a “culture,” but the event I concluded a few days ago leaves me more a stranger at home and work than I felt the first day I stepped foot in either. I have no choice but to reconceive the assumption which I have carried to much of my scholarly work in religious studies and anthropology, namely, that culture is a configuration largely of language, thought, and art. I am certain now that culture also resides quite literally in the bones; that is, in our patterns of moving, breathing, walking and so on.