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‘This is the way the world ends, not …?’ : On performance compulsion and climate change
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Kershaw, Baz (2012) ‘This is the way the world ends, not …?’ : On performance compulsion and climate change. Performance Research, Vol.17 (No.4). pp. 5-17. doi:10.1080/13528165.2012.712244 ISSN 1352-8165.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2012.712244
Abstract
To see the Earth in a grain of sand by the briefest of lightning flashes may be Homo sapiens's only hope … of survival.
It is common knowledge that in recent years predictions about climate change from both sciences and arts have become increasingly stark. Its main environmental causes have been identified by major international scientific bodies and its potential effects on humans imagined though many artistic genres, most spectacularly in popular film. However, this article approaches the possibility of severely increasing global climate and civil instability via indirect routes, mostly searching for its sources in everyday systemic performance encounters between the Earth's ecologies and humanity. It begins with a brief look at global-scale performance networks, taking an isolated but typical environmental event as example. It proceeds to explore some common conditions that might be especially characteristic of climate change, mainly through juxtaposing artistic and scientific practices and results, including two of my own somewhat absurd performance research events. It tends to avoid sequential logic in its arguments, aiming instead to evolve prismatic angles of interpretation through my main concern with how individual human subjects may be integral to climate-related perturbation. This approach tentatively and variously posits that human beings currently may possess a generally unrecognised compulsion to mis-perform ecologically. But also I suggest it may be critical to treat this particular matter lightly, otherwise it could become impossible to invent effective climate change antidotes. So the article also aims to test the rather ridiculous notion that some types of momentary human perception in performance might help to avert global warming. Hence above I offer an ironic motto as caption to the famous earthrise image of the Emerald Planet.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||
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Subjects: | P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN2000 Dramatic representation. The Theater | ||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Arts > Theatre, Performance and Cultural Policy Studies | ||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Climatic changes, Performance art | ||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Performance Research | ||||
Publisher: | Taylor & Francis | ||||
ISSN: | 1352-8165 | ||||
Official Date: | 2012 | ||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | Vol.17 | ||||
Number: | No.4 | ||||
Page Range: | pp. 5-17 | ||||
DOI: | 10.1080/13528165.2012.712244 | ||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access |
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