Description
On Objects explores the various transformations of the object in theatre and performance, from sacred to sacrilegious, fetishised to worthless, functional to aesthetic, craft to commodity, unstable yet enduring. The issue examines the presence of objects in a variety of theatrical and performance media from Futurism and Surrealism to forms of puppet theatre, the Bio-objects of Tadeusz Kantor, the collections of Sigmund Freud, surfaces and identities of virtual objects, and the museum as object and artefact refuge. Things as diverse as popcorn, biomechanics and eyes are considered alongside the designation of objects and their relation to the stage, from Heidegger’s things to the ghostly trace of Derrida, from the body without organs of Deleuze and Guattari to Bachelard’s dreamy geometry of shells. On Objects questions how the study and deployment of objects is differently inflected across established disciplines (art, theatre, history, archaeology, anthropology, sociology) and emerging interdisciplines (performance studies, food studies, tourism studies), evoking shadowy performance spaces crammed with forgotten memories, props and ephemera, from the cultural margins.
Editorial: Opening Remarks on a Private Collection
Laurie Beth Clark, Richard Gough, Daniel Watt
pp. 1 – 3
The Pleasure of Objectification: A spectator’s guide
Anna Fenmore
pp. 4 – 13
Notes on Adhesion: The object of art and the work of art after conceptualism
Michael Jay McClure
pp. 14 – 23
Object Drawing
Bill Prosser
pp. 24 – 29
Object Lessons and Performative Relations: Residue, reliability and self-sufficiency
Jessica Wyman
pp. 30 – 36
Performing Objecthood: Museums, architecture and the play of artefactuality
Naomi Stead
pp. 37 – 46
The Virtual Cabinet of Dr Freud
Robert John Brocklehurst
pp. 47 – 57
Bake n’ Quake: Objects, surfaces and identity distortion in Id Software’s Quake III Arena
Stephen Turk
pp. 58 – 66
The Role of Objects in Bataille’s Story of the Eye
Rina Arya
pp. 67 – 77
Tadeusz Kantor: Collector and Historian
Michal Kobialka
pp. 78 – 96
Tracing/Training Rebellion: Object work in Meyerhold’s biomechanics
Jonathan Pitches
pp. 97 – 103
Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio and the Relational Image
Ruth Holdsworth
pp. 104 – 114
The Use of Objects in Sintesi of the Italian Futurists
Gordon Ramsay
pp. 115 – 122
Puppetry and the Destruction of the Object
Matthew Isaac Cohen
pp. 123 – 131
Acting with Puppets and Objects: Representation and perception in Robert Lepage’s The Far Side of the Moon
James Reynolds
pp. 132 – 142
Designed for Disappearance: The U.S. military field telephone TA-312/PT and the performance principle of torture
Michael Peterson
pp. 143 – 150
Catalyst, Praxis, Habitat: Performative objects in Chinese time-based art
Meiling Cheng
pp. 151 – 166
Popica/Popcorn: Resistance and ritual performance
Myron M. Beasley
pp. 167 – 172
Notes on Contributors
pp. 173 – 174
