Encountering Worlds: Performing In/As Philosophy in the Ecological Age

Authors

  • João Florêncio University of Exeter

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21476/PP.2015.1114

Abstract

Within 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.

Author Biography

João Florêncio, University of Exeter

[email protected]

João Florêncio is a lecturer in History of Modern and Contemporary Art and Visual Culture at the University of Exeter. His research navigates the intersections of visual culture, performance theory, philosophy and the eco-humanities in an attempt to reconsider the realm of the aesthetic vis-à-vis the ongoing ecological crisis and the metaphysical challenges raised therein.

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Published

10-04-2015

How to Cite

Florêncio, João. 2015. “Encountering Worlds: Performing In As Philosophy in the Ecological Age”. Performance Philosophy 1 (1):195-213. https://doi.org/10.21476/PP.2015.1114.

Issue

Section

Non-human Performance Philosophy