fischer lichte culture

MODERN AUSTRIAN LITERATURE, VOL. 42, NO. 3. © 2009 MODERN AUSTRIAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE ASSOCIATION

Culture as PerformanceErika Fischer-Lichte

Freie Universität Berlin

Swarms of birds. Cell phone dating services. Internet communities. Police squads duped by demonstrators using the “out of control” strategy. Critical customers organizing payment boycotts online. Hooligans. International terror networks. What do these acutely heterogeneous groups have in common? They all describe performative collectives. They have no central leadership, no master SODQ��QR�¿[HG�VWUXFWXUHV��DQG�QR�VHOI�UHSUHVHQWDWLRQ�DV�D�VLQJOH�HQWLW\��7KHLU�DFWLRQV�as a group are the result of local contacts and temporary synchronizations. These forms of collective performances are responsible for numerous ongoing cultural, VRFLDO��DQG�SROLWLFDO�WUDQVIRUPDWLRQV��7KH\�UHPDLQ�ÀHHWLQJ��HYHQW�OLNH�VWUXFWXUHV�WKDW� HOXGH� GH¿QLWLRQ��:KLOH� WKH\� KDYH� JUHDW� SURGXFWLYH� SRWHQWLDO�� WKH\� FDQ� EH�equally destructive and dangerous.

Over ten years ago I began a collaboration with other scholars from the humanities and social sciences at the Freie Universität Berlin to embark on a long-term research project on the dynamics of cultural change. A so-called Sonderforschungsbereich on “Kulturen des Performativen” was established, generously funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Back then we could not have imagined that one day we would examine phenomena such as the ones I just listed. Our point of departure was to question the rather odd but still widely held view in the humanities of the early 1990s that there remained a fundamental GLIIHUHQFH�EHWZHHQ�(XURSHDQ�DQG�QRQ�(XURSHDQ�FXOWXUHV��,W�ZDV�ZLGHO\�DVVXPHG�WKDW� (XURSHDQ� FXOWXUHV� DVVHUWHG� DQG� UHSUHVHQWHG� WKHPVHOYHV� WKURXJK� WH[WV� DQG�DUWLIDFWV��ZKLOH�QRQ�(XURSHDQ�FXOWXUHV�DUWLFXODWHG�WKHLU�VHOI�LPDJH�DQG�VHOI�XQGHUVWDQGLQJ� WKURXJK� YDULRXV� NLQGV� RI� FXOWXUDO� SHUIRUPDQFHV�� (XURSHDQ�FXOWXUHV� GH¿QHG� WKHPVHOYHV� WKURXJK� WH[WXDOLW\�� QRQ�(XURSHDQ� FXOWXUHV� WKURXJK�performance. This difference is captured by the dichotomous metaphorical pair of “culture as text” as against “culture as performance.” With our research project we set out to collapse this dichotomy. We aimed to explore the interplay between performativity and textuality as the driving force behind the cultural dynamics LQ�(XURSH��7KXV��E\� IRFXVLQJ�RXU� UHVHDUFK�RQ�(XURSHDQ�FXOWXUHV��ZH�VRXJKW� WR�demonstrate that they were as performative as other cultures.

In order to explore the interplay between textuality and performativity in (XURSHDQ�FXOWXUHV��ZH�IRFXVHG�RQ�WKHLU�UHODWLRQVKLS�LQ�FRQVWHOODWLRQV�ZKHUH�PHGLDO�conditions had undergone fundamental changes, thus creating new parameters for performativity and textuality. We found that such constellations were particularly common during the Middle Ages, the early modern period, and modernity, that is from the nineteenth century until today. Four pivotal shifts in the conditions for

2 ERIKA FISCHER-LICHTE

FRPPXQLFDWLRQ�PDUNHG�WKH�PHGLHYDO�DQG�HDUO\�PRGHUQ�SHULRG��WKH�WUDQVLWLRQ�RI�YHUQDFXODU�ODQJXDJHV�IURP�RUDO�WR�ZULWWHQ�IRUP�ZKLFK�UHDFKHG�LWV�¿UVW�DSH[�GXULQJ�WKH� WZHOIWK�FHQWXU\�� WKH� LQYHQWLRQ�RI� WKH�SULQWLQJ�SUHVV� LQ� WKH�¿IWHHQWK�FHQWXU\��increasing dialogical references to ancient authorities; and, lastly, the widespread encounters with newly “discovered” cultures. The second juncture refers to the development of the new media during the nineteenth century and extends into the present.

According to our initial hypothesis, these periods each marked a paradigmatic performative shift or turn. Yet we always rejected the naïve notion of a linear construction of history whereby the invention of the printing press transformed the largely performative medieval culture into a predominantly textual one and the new media have subsequently returned twentieth-century culture to a primarily performative state. Such a linear construction seemed untenable from the beginning given that in the aftermath of Gutenberg’s invention new performative formations were established such as a professional theater as a multidimensional mass medium in the second half of the sixteenth century. The commedia dell’arte, WKH�(OL]DEHWKHDQ�WKHDWHU��DQG��¿QDOO\��WKH�RSHUD�DOVR�VHUYH�DV�H[DPSOHV�KHUH��<HW�LQ�the twentieth century, it was the new media that gave rise to alternative forms of textual production. Here the terms “performative shift” and “performative turn” seemed appropriate since such junctures in the conditions for communication crucially changed the relationship between performativity and textuality, therefore describing fundamental paradigmatic shifts.

(DUO\�RQ�LQ�RXU�UHVHDUFK�ZH�XVHG�WKH�WHUPV�³SHUIRUPDWLYH´�DQG�³SHUIRUPDWLYLW\´�LQ� WKH�FODVVLFDO� VHQVH�� L�H�� DV� -RKQ�/��$XVWLQ�GH¿QHG� WKHP�ZLWK� UHVSHFW� WR�SHU�formative utterances, highlighting their self-referentiality and their capacity to establish new social realities. Here we did not encounter any terminological GLI¿FXOWLHV�EHWZHHQ�WKH�(QJOLVK�DQG�*HUPDQ�ZRUGV��VLQFH�$XVWLQ�LQWURGXFHG�WKH�WHUP�³SHUIRUPDWLYH´�DV�D�VSHFL¿F�DQG�ZHOO�GH¿QHG�terminus technicus that could easily be transferred into German. Yet, in this context, I would like to emphasize WKDW� WKH�(QJOLVK�ZRUG�³SHUIRUPDQFH´�DQG� LWV�*HUPDQ�HTXLYDOHQW�³$XII�KUXQJ´�are not entirely identical. The German word, for instance, does not encompass that aspect of “performance” so brilliantly theorized by Jon McKenzie in his book 3HUIRUP��RU�HOVH��)URP�'LVFLSOLQH�WR�3HUIRUPDQFH (see 15ff.), that is to say ³$XII�KUXQJ´�GRHV�QRW�FRQYH\�WKDW�GLPHQVLRQ�RI�DFKLHYHPHQW�XQGHUO\LQJ�VXFK�statements as “the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority’s best performance.” +RZHYHU�� XQOLNH� LWV� (QJOLVK� FRXQWHUSDUW�� WKH� *HUPDQ� ZRUG� FDQ� DOVR� EH� XVHG�synonymously for behavior. Thus, my usage of the term “performance” in the IROORZLQJ�LV�PHDQW�DV�WKH�(QJOLVK�WUDQVODWLRQ�RI�³$XII�KUXQJ�´�ODFNLQJ�SDUWLFXODU�GLPHQVLRQV�RI�WKH�(QJOLVK�WHUP�ZKLOH�FRPSULVLQJ�FHUWDLQ�RWKHUV�

This is how we began. I will refrain from recounting the entire history of our research during the last ten years. Rather, I will focus on the exciting discoveries we made that have led us to the problems, questions, and topics we are working

3CULTURE AS PERFORMANCE

RQ� WRGD\� DQG� ZKLFK� ,� PHQWLRQHG� LQ� P\� RSHQLQJ� UHPDUNV�� 7KH� ¿UVW� GLVFRYHU\�concerned our fundamental distinction between performativity and textuality. In developing a weak, strong, and radical concept of performativity (see Krämer and Stahlhut 55–58), it turned out that with reference to the radical concept, it proved FRXQWHUSURGXFWLYH�WR�GH¿QH�SHUIRUPDWLYLW\�DQG�WH[WXDOLW\�DV�ELQDU\�RSSRVLWHV�HYHQ�for heuristic purposes. As our research has shown, performative processes are capable of generating a dynamic that destabilizes dichotomous terminological schemes as a whole. Like Austin, who collapsed the binary opposition between constative and performative utterances over the course of his lectures, we could not sustain a dichotomous understanding of performativity and textuality. Increasingly, textuality revealed itself as a sub-category of performativity. Thus the metaphor “culture as text” increasingly blended into that of “culture as performance.”

([SORULQJ� GLIIHUHQW� JHQUHV� RI� SHUIRUPDQFH��ZH�PDGH� DQRWKHU� H[FLWLQJ�discovery—a performance comes into being as an autopoietic feedback loop (see Fischer-Lichte 80–81). It emerges out of the bodily co-presence of different groups of participants and their confrontation and interaction. This basic condition applies WR�DOO�SHUIRUPDWLYH�VLWXDWLRQV��LQ�D�WKHDWHU�SHUIRUPDQFH�LQ�WKH�ODWH�QLQHWHHQWK�FHQWXU\�where one group of participants, the spectators, sat more or less still in a darkened auditorium and watched the plot unfold on stage, possibly with strong feelings of emotional involvement, empathy, or suspense, but without ever interfering; it equally applied to performances in which actors and spectators freely exchanged their roles. Whatever the reactions of those who prefer to watch, they are perceived E\�DOO�RWKHU�SDUWLFLSDQWV²VHQVHG��KHDUG��RU�VHHQ��6XFK�UHVSRQVHV�LQ�WXUQ�LQÀXHQFH�the further course of the performance. Whatever the performers do affects the spectators; whatever the spectators do elicits a response from the performers and other spectators. In this sense performances are generated and determined by the actions and behavior of all participants, no matter whether they are performers or spectators. All participants act as co-creators of the performance which, in many respects, remains unpredictable and spontaneous to a certain degree.

Therefore, it is crucial to clearly distinguish between the concept of per-formance and that of the PLVH�HQ�VFqQH or staging. The term “mise en scène” refers WR�DQ�XQGHUO\LQJ�RXWOLQH�DQG�VSHFL¿F�SODQ��GHYLVHG�E\�RQH�RU�PRUH�LQGLYLGXDOV�DQG�evolving through the rehearsal process (as another, slightly different feedback loop). Moreover, the concept of “mise en scène” includes the result of this collaboration, i.e., the planned and intended performative process of bringing forth the materiality of a performance. Yet even if this plan is minutely adhered to in every single performance, each one will still differ from the next. Since a performance comes into being out of the interaction of all participants, it is inconceivable that its materiality appears exactly as planned given that it also comprises all perceptible spectator reactions. Performance and PLVH�HQ�VFqQH are not identical. It might well be the case that the PLVH�HQ�VFqQH employs certain


VWUDWHJLHV� DLPLQJ� DW� VSHFL¿F� HIIHFWV� DPRQJ� WKH� VSHFWDWRUV��+RZHYHU�� WKH� DFWXDO�reactions of the spectators are not predictable, let alone controllable. They vary from performance to performance.

We can conclude that a performance comes into being as an autopoietic feedback loop—that it occurs as a process of self-generation. That is to say that all participants bring forth the performance together; however, no individual or group of people can completely plan its course and control it. All participants act as co-creators who, to different degrees and in different ways, are engaged in the process of generating and shaping the performance without anyone being able to determine its course by her- or himself. The performance comes into being by the interaction of actors and spectators, thus transforming them all into participants of the performance. In this sense, the performance happens to the participants. It opens up the possibility for them to experience themselves as subjects able to co-determine the actions and behavior of others and, at the same time, whose actions and behavior are determined by others. They experience themselves neither as fully autonomous nor as wholly dependent subjects, but have taken upon themselves the responsibility for a situation that they did not plan but in which they are participating.

)RU�WKHVH�UHDVRQV�LW�SURYHV�GLI¿FXOW��LI�QRW�LPSRVVLEOH��WR�GHDO�ZLWK�D�SHUIRU�mance from a hermeneutic perspective. This is not to say that it would be impossible to attribute meanings to single elements, sequences, devices, or strategies. However, the performance can by no means be understood as an expression of a given sense or overarching meaning. Anything meaningful that might emerge in its course is due to unforeseeable turns which the performance takes because of the interactions between actor and spectator. It does not necessarily result from WKH�LQWHQWLRQV�RI�RQH�RU�VHYHUDO�LQGLYLGXDOV��7KH�QDWXUH�RI�SHUIRUPDQFH�GH¿HV�WKH�control of the individual, thus emphasizing the involvement of all participants. It is impossible to plan a performance, per se contingent, because it is impossible to control the actions and behavior of all participants. They are not predictable, even though they often appear plausible and logical in retrospect.

:LWK� UHJDUG� WR�SHUIRUPDQFH�� WZR� UHODWHG�DVSHFWV�KDYH� WR�EH�GLVWLQJXLVKHG��that of generating and creating the performance, and that of letting it happen and being exposed to it. Performances cannot be conceived without this aspect of contingency, chance, and unpredictability. Rather, these form their constitutive components, which generally, however, only become evident retrospectively. This has far-reaching consequences with respect to our metaphor of “culture as performance.” Cultural processes, insofar as they are regarded as performative processes, can only be experienced and understood in terms of their particular quality if we consider the inextricable bond between performance and contingency. Their marriage constitutes reality by bringing forth something that is never exclusively due to the intention of one or more of the participating subjects; they constitute it by allowing unforeseen and unplanned phenomena to emerge.


At this point in our research on performance and performativity, we LQWURGXFHG�WKH�FRQFHSW�RI�³HPHUJHQFH�´�7KH�WHUP�ZDV�FRLQHG�LQ�WKH�¿UVW�GHFDGHV�of the twentieth century in the context of evolutionary cosmologies. Today it is used in the natural and social sciences as well as in philosophy. It has proven to be a key concept in the philosophy of mind, in theories of self-organization, in connectionism, synergetics, and chaos theory. However, the term has not yet gained a strong foothold in cultural or aesthetic theory. Yet to us, the term is indispensable when exploring cultural dynamics with respect to performative SURFHVVHV��(DFK�RI� WKH�¿HOGV� OLVWHG�DERYH�XVHV�D� VOLJKWO\�GLIIHUHQW�GH¿QLWLRQ�RU�VKDGH�RI�WKH�WHUP��:H�KDYH�QRW�WUDQVIHUUHG�DQ\�SDUWLFXODU�GH¿QLWLRQ�IURP�RQH�RI�WKHVH�¿HOGV�LQWR�RXU�UHVHDUFK��5DWKHU��ZH�XVH�LW�WR�GHVFULEH�DOO�WKRVH�SKHQRPHQD�WKDW�DSSHDU�QRW�DV�D�FRQVHTXHQFH�RI�VSHFL¿F�SODQV�DQG�LQWHQWLRQV�EXW�DV�XQIRUHVHHQ�DQG�� LQ� WKLV� VHQVH�� FRQWLQJHQW� HYHQWV��(YHQ� LI� WKHLU� DSSHDUDQFH� VHHPV�SHUIHFWO\�plausible in retrospect, it cannot be controlled. Unpredictability constitutes a GH¿QLQJ�IHDWXUH�RI�HPHUJHQFH�

Performative processes cannot be conceived of without the notion of emergence. This insight requires the re-conceptualization of terms, ideas, and contexts that have proven to be equally fundamental for cultural and performative processes.

1. 7KH�¿UVW�UH�FRQFHSWXDOL]DWLRQ�FRQFHUQV�VXEMHFWLYLW\��$V�ZH�KDYH�VHHQ��WKH�autopoietic feedback loop which generates the performance negates the LGHD�RI�DQ�DXWRQRPRXV�VXEMHFW��,W�GH¿QHV�WKH�DUWLVWV�DQG�RWKHU�SDUWLFLSDQWV�as subjects who determine others and let themselves be determined by others. This contradicts the idea of a subject who, by virtue of her or his own free will, sovereignly decides what to do and what not to do; a subject who, independently of others and external instructions, determines who she or he wants to be. It also vehemently opposes the idea of the subject being completely determined by others and, therefore, not responsible for her or his actions.

2. It follows that the relationship between individual and group, community, DQG� VRFLHW\� PXVW� EH� UHGH¿QHG� ZLWK� UHJDUG� WR� DOO� JHQUHV� RI� FXOWXUDO�performance such as rituals, festivals, games, political rallies, and sports competitions. For it has become clear that no individual or group RI� LQGLYLGXDOV�VSHFLDOLVWV�ZLOO� VXFFHHG� LQ�PDQLSXODWLQJ� WKH� ³LQQRFHQW´�participants of such events according to their intention via minutely planned and calculated strategies of staging. Such an assumption ignores the fact that a performance is not at the disposal of anyone and negates the responsibility borne by each individual participating in the event through that very participation. The manipulation thesis, propagated by the social sciences for such a long time, thus fails. The question of human agency must be addressed anew.

3. The discovery of the fundamental role played by emergence in perfor-mative processes required the re-examination of such processes in


terms of their structure and course. We found that these processes, whether performed as a permanent repetition of common practices or as intentional actions aimed at bringing about transformation, can all be regarded as transformative processes. Whenever something unforeseen happens, the process takes another turn. We noticed that such unforeseen moments are quite frequently prepared by or linked to the appearance of a hiatus that, depending on the particular performative process in which it occurred, was described as interruption, liminal phase or space, third space, indeterminacy, potentiality, latency, etc. In all these cases, emergence occurred because of such a hiatus, which can be described as the offspring of or evidence for the transformative power conjured and set free by performative processes. This holds true IRU� DOO� SHUIRUPDWLYH� SURFHVVHV�� LQFOXGLQJ� WUDQVJUHVVLRQ�� GLV¿JXUDWLRQ��alienation, differentiation, experiment, translation, transfer, interweav-ing, hybridization, participation, exchange, negotiation, dynamization of symbolic systems and spaces, movement, spatialization, social production of space, symbolic or atmospheric charging of spaces, syn-chronization, temporalization, embodiment, incorporation, constitution, and transformation of states and identity—to name just the most important processes we investigated.

4. Finally, the discovery of emergence has far-reaching consequences for our own work as scholars. Insofar as we also regard our research as performative processes, the question arises to what extent it is possible to plan such processes. Is it reasonable to assume that the new and unexpected changes that scholarly processes are supposed to engender can be brought about intentionally? Does it not make more sense to create situations in which the unplanned and unpredictable can suddenly emerge out of the scholarly process that researchers are engaged in? For a collaborative research project in the humanities such as ours, where the focus lies on the ongoing discussion between a number of junior and senior scholars who will ultimately write their own books in the loneliness of their studies, this is, in fact, a crucial question demanding the development of a new epistemology.

'H¿QLQJ�SHUIRUPDWLYH�SURFHVVHV�DV�WUDQVIRUPDWLYH�SURFHVVHV�HPSKDVL]HV�DQG�IRUHJURXQGV�WKHLU�VSHFLDO�WHPSRUDOLW\��$W�¿UVW�JODQFH��LW�VHHPV�WKDW�SHUIRUPDWLYH�processes are imbued with a particular presentness. Performative utterances such as promises, threats, benedictions, or curses are realized here and now, i.e., in the temporal and spatial present. The same holds true for performative acts or processes such as rituals, festivals, or soccer games. They exist only at the place and time of their realization and do not aim at producing a lasting artifact. The process of performance produces no object other than the performance itself. Process and product coincide here. They do not exist beyond the presence of their ÀHHWLQJ�SHUIRUPDQFH��


<HW��ZKLOH�SHUIRUPDQFHV�FRLQFLGH�ZLWK�WKHLU�ÀHHWLQJ�SUHVHQFH��WKH\�UHIHU�WR�the past in multiple ways. The formulaic performative utterances of baptisms, weddings, blessings, curses, etc. are spoken as quasi citations that recall the past context in which they originated. Their performance brings to mind former XWWHUDQFHV�� PD\EH� HYHQ� WKH� YHU\� ¿UVW� WLPH� WKLV� IRUPXOD� ZDV� XVHG�� UHFDOOLQJ�the “situation of origin.” The present performative utterance thus turns into a mnemonic act. A similar logic applies to performances. The performance of a ritual, for instance, usually occurs as a re-performance. In the past, the ritual has been performed several times. This fact alone secures its reference to the SDVW��0RUHRYHU��PDQ\�ULWXDOV�SHUIRUP�D�VSHFLDO�SDVW��D�¿UVW�DFW�RU�P\WK�RI�RULJLQ��VR� WKDW� WKH� ULWXDO� LWVHOI� LV� SHUIRUPHG� DV� DQ� DFW� RI� FRPPHPRUDWLRQ��(YHQ� LI� QRW�as evident as in rituals, the reference to the past and to former performances is characteristic of all genres of performance. A twofold resonance of the past H[LVWV�ZLWKLQ�SHUIRUPDQFHV��RQ�WKH�RQH�KDQG�� WKH\�FRPSULVH� WKH�UHSHDWLQJ�HFKR�of past performances; on the other, they refer to the future by resonating past performances to allow something new to emerge. Therefore, performative processes very determinedly point to the future. Performative utterances such as promises, threats, curses, and blessings are certainly performed in the present. However, they unmistakably point to a future that they are meant to bring about. Insofar as performative acts and processes constitute reality, they aim at the future and the coming into being of something that does not yet exist, something new. The performative act of a baptism or wedding, for instance, constitutes a social reality that determines the future.

This holds true not just for rituals involving performative utterances but for all rituals, particularly rites of passage which are meant to secure a safe passage from a present state, identity, or social situation to another, new one. In this sense, rituals always aim at and bring forth a particular future. The same can be said DERXW�RWKHU�JHQUHV�RI�FXOWXUDO�SHUIRUPDQFH��$�IHVWLYDO�DLPV�DW�HLWKHU�DI¿UPLQJ��and thus renewing, an existing community or at bringing about a new one. A sports competition aims at generating winners and losers; a political assembly is supposed to legitimize claims to power or to establish a particular social bond. Whatever the aim might be, performances always bring about a particular future.

7R�VXP�XS��SHUIRUPDWLYH�SURFHVVHV�DUH�UHDOL]HG�LQ�WKH�SUHVHQW�E\�UHIHUHQFLQJ�the past and bringing forth the future. Austin’s concept of illocutionary and perlocutionary acts also addresses such a future. Performative processes, including repetitions, re-enactments, and re-performances, extend beyond the present. They possess a dimension of effect that points to the future. It is this dimension that KDV�FDSWXUHG�RXU�LQWHUHVW�LQ�WKH�RQJRLQJ��¿QDO�VWDJH�RI�RXU�SURMHFW��+HUH�DJDLQ��WKH�phenomenon of emergence comes into play. As already stated, the large variety of performative processes we investigated predominantly realized themselves as interplay of intended action and emergence, planning and contingency. Therefore, their effect on the participants cannot be completely steered and controlled by a


single individual. While a particular effect might coincide with the intentions of the artists, leading to a particular future that was envisaged beforehand, effect and IXWXUH�XOWLPDWHO\�UHPDLQ�HOXVLYH�LQ�WKH�SHUIRUPDWLYH�SURFHVV��(PHUJHQW�SKHQRPHQD�take the performance in a different direction at least in part, though they might lead to the failure of the performative act as a whole. The future brought about by this performative act is predictable only to a limited degree.

$V�VWDWHG�DERYH��WKH�DSSHDUDQFH�RI�VXFK�HPHUJHQW�SKHQRPHQD�EHQH¿WV�IURP�WKH�RFFXUUHQFH�RI�D�KLDWXV��DOVR�GH¿QHG�DV�OLPLQDO�SKDVH�RU�VSDFH��WKLUG�VSDFH��indeterminacy, potentiality, or latency. The different names unmistakably point to the fact that we are dealing with related and comparable phenomena based on their emergent nature and enabling quality. Yet they draw attention to themselves in different ways. The moment the performative process opens up for emergent phenomena, the possibility for it to take another unintended, perhaps even unimaginable, turn is created. Today we are confronted with the question of how the future comes into being through such performative processes. The discovery of emergence in performative processes resulted in our efforts to introduce a kind of a futurological perspective to the research on performance and performativity.

Futurology, so far, has been the domain of the social sciences and economics, even if their research brings together multiple disciplines. Their efforts are focused on conducting studies and projects to determine how the future will or should look. Futurology expressly demarcates itself from prophecy, science ¿FWLRQ��DQG�WUHQG�UHVHDUFK��HYHQ�LI��RU�SHUKDSV�EHFDXVH��LW�ZRUNV�ZLWK�FUHDWLYH��DQG�even fantastical, images and designs of the future that are inconceivable without normative and prospective elements. In the last years, futurology has also begun to consider developments and events that are characterized by disorder, multiplicity, GLIIHUHQWLDWLRQ�� DQG� LQWHUGHSHQGHQF\� ZLWK� WXUEXOHQW� ¿HOGV�� LQGHWHUPLQDF\�� DQG�instabilities. Our research of the last years on performances as autopoietic feedback loops, dynamic communities resembling swarms, and, generally, on the relevance of emergence in performative processes undeniably shares some points RI�FRQWDFW�ZLWK� WKH�DERYH�PHQWLRQHG�¿HOGV�RI� UHVHDUFK� LQ�IXWXURORJ\��KRZHYHU��they have followed different problems and methodologies.

Our ongoing investigation, in fact, contributes to futurology, albeit to a very VSHFL¿F�NLQG�RI�LW��,Q�FRQWUDVW�WR�WKH�GLIIHUHQW�EUDQFKHV�RI�IXWXURORJ\��RXU�UHVHDUFK�on the coming into being of the future is based on perspectives and methodologies deriving from studies in the arts and culture. This is why we can do away with the normative, prospective, or even prognostic elements. Our interest does not focus on what type of future comes or is intended to come into being out of any given performative process—even if this question is considered as a matter of course. Instead, we focus on how future emerges because we are interested in the trace and promise of the future in the present, which manifests itself as a reverse causality whereby the future seemingly generates its effects already in the present.


Our decision to focus on hiatuses followed from the assumption that the decisive turn for the performative process happens at those moments; it is then that future emerges. Yet we must consider that the performative processes we investigate do not follow a linear course, either before or after this moment. Rather, whatever turn the performative process might take after such an emergent moment, it might, before too long, be interrupted by another such moment—and so on and so forth, ad libitum. What is retrospectively often construed and interpreted as a consistent process, in fact dissolves into a structure made up of shifts and breaks that encounters the shifts and breaks of other processes so that in the end we have a network lacking any kind of overview. In order to grasp such diachronic processes, we deemed it necessary to examine in a variety of synchronic cross sections such moments that take the process in another direction and let the future emerge. We are not interested in a confrontation of synchronic and diachronic investigations, of instantaneous and long-term changes. Rather, RXU� LQWHUHVW�IRFXVHV�RQ�WKH�TXHVWLRQ�RI�KRZ�SHUIRUPDWLYH�SURFHVVHV��GH¿QHG�E\�the interplay of intention and emergence, planning and contingency, give rise to new things—that is how the future emerges and becomes present through them.

7KLV�EULQJV�PH�EDFN� WR� WKH�PHWDSKRU�RI�³FXOWXUH�DV�SHUIRUPDQFH�´�$W�¿UVW�glance, it seems that it might describe a modern revival of the old metaphor of theatrum mundi or theatrum vitae humanae—that of the world and human life as theater. However, there remains an important difference between the two. The ancient metaphor referred to the illusion and transience of life for which the theater, for instance in the seventeenth century, acted as a perfect allegory. Yet, its modern reformulation emphasizes the fact that the same forces are at work in performance as in culture at large. Performance thus becomes a sort of laboratory for studying these forces. In many ways, our insights gained from studying performances correspond to those of the modern sciences, even though many scientists still refuse to acknowledge this fact. The modern sciences and the cultural, technological, and social developments they enable increasingly spread the conviction that the world is indeed suffused by “invisible forces” which affect us physically, even if we cannot hear, see, smell, or touch them. They allow for emergent phenomena in nature and society that elude all intentionality, planning, RU� IRUHFDVWV�� 7KH\� VHHP� WR� LQWHUOLQN� HYHU\WKLQJ�� VR� WKDW� WKH� ÀDSSLQJ�ZLQJV� RI�D� EXWWHUÀ\� LQ� RQH� KHPLVSKHUH� FRXOG� FDXVH� RU� SUHYHQW� D� KXUULFDQH� LQ� WKH� RWKHU��They imply that globalized societies have become so complex that the possible consequences of planned changes can hardly be fathomed, although they must be made. Paradoxically, the greater the progress of science and the more spectacular LWV�UHVXOWV��WKH�TXLFNHU�WKH�(QOLJKWHQPHQW�LOOXVLRQ�RI�WKH�LQ¿QLWH�SHUIHFWLELOLW\�RI�man and world is vanishing. Today, the sciences convey the impression that the world ultimately eludes the grasp of science and technology. In much the same manner, the autopoietic feedback loop that is at work in performances eludes the control of any one participant. Performance in this respect marks the limits


RI� WKH�(QOLJKWHQPHQW�E\�XQGHUPLQLQJ� WKH�(QOLJKWHQPHQW¶V� UHOLDQFH�RQ�ELQDU\�oppositions to describe the world and its belief in the total controllability of natural and cultural processes. In fact, our research on performance and performativity FDQ�EH�UHJDUGHG�DV�D�³QHZ´�(QOLJKWHQPHQW��,W�GRHV�QRW�FDOO�XSRQ�WKH�SHRSOH�DQG��in particular, scientists and scholars to govern nature—neither their own nor that surrounding them—but instead encourages them to enter into a new relationship with themselves and the world. This relationship will embrace emergence as a creative force and welcome the future, even if it takes place in ways unintended, unexpected, and even unimagined—just as it happens in performance.

WORKS CITED

)LVFKHU�/LFKWH��(ULND��Ästhetik des Performativen��)UDQNIXUW�D��0��6XKUNDPS��3ULQW�Krämer, Sybille, and Marco Stahlhut. “Das Performative als Thema der Sprach- und

Kulturwissenschaft.” Theorien des Performativen��(G��(ULND�)LVFKHU�/LFKWH�DQG�&KULVWRSK�:XOI��%HUOLQ��$NDGHPLH��±��3ULQW��

McKenzie, Jon. 3HUIRUP��RU�HOVH��)URP�'LVFLSOLQH�WR�3HUIRUPDQFH��/RQGRQ��5RXWOHGJH��2001. Print.

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