Performance, Transport and Mobility: Making Passage

225 Pages·2015·3.113 MB·English

by  Fiona Wilkie (auth.)

Performance, Transport and Mobility
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Performance, Transport
and Mobility
Making Passage
Fiona Wilkie
University of Roehampton, UK
© Fiona Wilkie 2015
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-0-230-34315-3
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication
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work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2015 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
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Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
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Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
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Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
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ISBN 978-1-349-34457-4 ISBN 978-1-137-47689-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137476890
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For Mum and Dad, Jeanette and Peter Scott,
with love and thanks
Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
The mobility turn 3
The circulation of performance 8
Approaching performance, transport and mobility 11
Departure: registering and making passage 16
1 ‘Three miles an hour’: Pedestrian Travel 18
Critical contexts 18
Belief 23
Retracing 27
Resistance 32
Pace 35
Walking the walk 43
2 ‘Nothing is moving’: Railway Travel 46
The cultural space of the railway 48
A (mobile) room with a view 53
Documenting railway mobilities 60
Disconnection 70
3 ‘Motorvating’: Road Travel 83
Paradoxes and ambivalences 84
Asphalt pedestrians 89
Other vehicles, other stories 97
Driving like a girl 108
‘Don’t forget the motor city’ 113
4 ‘A place without a place’: Boat Travel 120
The boat as site 120
Shipbuilding 124
Sailing/cruising 136
Casting adrift 142
vii
viii Contents
5 ‘Alone at last’: Air Travel 152
Performing aeromobilities 155
Reimagining place 161
Reimagining time 168
Reconfiguring relations 174
Notes 182
Bibliography 193
Index 202
List of Illustrations
0.1 All Our Journeys in Berlin 2007– 2013, Sophia New and
Daniel Belasco Rogers (2014) 11
1.1 Ingrid Pollard, Wordsworth Heritage, 1992. Billboard
poster. Courtesy of Autograph ABP 21
1.2 Louise Ann Wilson, Fissure, 2011. Commissioned and
produced by Art Events in association with Louise Ann
Wilson Company. Flyer image by Morph with original
photo by Simon Webb 26
1.3 Robert Wilson, Walking, 2012. Photo: Chris Taylor 39
1.4 Robert Wilson, Walking (Holkham beach), 2012.
Photo: Chris Taylor 42
2.1 Director Peter Cheeseman (l.) with resident dramatist
Peter Terson on the stage cloth for The Knotty – 1966.
Photo: Victoria Theatre Collection Staffordshire 65
2.2 Adele (Samantha Young) in a revival of David Greig’s
Europe at the Barbican, London, 2007, directed by
Douglas Rintoul. Photo: Tristram Kenton/Lebrecht
Music & Arts 76
3.1 Anna Best and Paul Whitty, sketch for Vauxhall Pleasure,
2004. www.vauxhallpleasure.org.uk 87
3.2 Anna Best and Paul Whitty, Vauxhall Pleasure, 2004 90
3.3 Emanuel Licha, War Tourist (5 - channel video installation),
2004– 8. Still from the New Orleans channel 104
3.4 Mick Douglas, W - 11 Tram, Melbourne, 2007. Photo:
Karen Trist 107
4.1 Lone Twin, The Boat Project, 2012. Photo: Toby Adamson
and Mike Austen 125
4.2 Titanic Belfast (photo courtesy of Titanic Belfast) 134
ix