Theatres of Immanence: Deleuze and the Ethics of Performance

302 Pages·2013·1.391 MB·English

by  Laura Cull (auth.)

Theatres of Immanence
Also by Laura Cull
DELEUZE AND PERFORMANCE (ed.)
Theatres of Immanence
Deleuze and the Ethics of Performance
Laura Cull
© Laura Cull 2013
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 ISBN 978-0-230-31952-3
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First published 2013 by
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registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
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Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC,
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ISBN 978-1-349-34008-8 ISBN 978-1-137-29191-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137291912
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13
To John & James
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Contents
List of Illustrations viii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
1 Immanent Authorship: From the Living Theatre
to Cage and Goat Island 22
2 Disorganizing Language, Voicing Minority:
From Artaud to Carmelo Bene, Robert Wilson
and Georges Lavaudant 57
3 Immanent Imitations, Animal Affects:
From Hijikata Tatsumi to Marcus Coates 105
4 Paying Attention, Participating in the Whole:
Allan Kaprow alongside Lygia Clark 145
5 Ethical Durations, Opening to Other Times:
Returning to Goat Island with Wilson 178
Conclusion: What ‘Good’ Is Immanent Theatre?
Immanence as an Ethico-Aesthetic Value 212
Coda 239
Notes 241
Bibliography 261
Index 280
vii
List of Illustrations
Cover image: Allan Kaprow, Fluids, 1967/2008, Happening. Reinvention
presented for ‘UBS Openings: Saturday Live’, ‘Happening Again: Fluids
and Scales’, Tate Modern, London. Version by Alice Kogel and students
from Goldsmiths, University of London. Courtesy Allan Kaprow Estate and
Hauser & Wirth. Photograph © Laura Cull.
1 Photograph from Goat Island, It’s Shifting Hank (1994) 24
2 Eikoh Hosoe, Kamaitachi #17 (1965) 108
3 Eikoh Hosoe, Kamaitachi #8 (1965) 132
4 Marcus Coates, Goshawk (Self Portrait) (1999) 133
5 Marcus Coates, Video still from Out of Season (2000) 135
6 Photograph illustrating how to perform Basic Thermal Units
from the Activity booklet 152
7 Photograph illustrating how to perform Level from
the Activity booklet 158
8 Photograph illustrating how to perform Useful Fictions
from the Activity booklet 161
9 Lygia Clark, Baba Antropofãgica (1973) 163
10 P hotograph from Goat Island, When will the September roses
bloom? Last night was only a comedy (2004) 206
11 V ideo still from A Last, A Quartet (2009) by Lucy Cash and
Goat Island 210
viii
Acknowledgements
The preparatory work for this book has been undertaken over a number of
years, informed and supported by a great many people – colleagues, friends
and family – whom I would like to take this opportunity to thank. Firstly,
I would like to thank Nick Kaye, for his diligent readings of my work in
its earliest stages and his on-going professional advice. I would also like
to thank Alice Barnaby, my colleague at the University of Exeter, for her
friendship and support over the years; and Alan Read, for his generous
readings and provocative questioning of my work, as well as his on-going
enthusiasm for the wider Performance & Philosophy projects with which
I’ve been involved over the last few years. Matthew Goulish and Lin Hixson,
too, have played an absolutely vital part in shaping my ideas and practices;
and I would like to thank them, as well as Karen Christopher, Bryan Saner
and Stephen Bottoms, for their openness and encouragement in relation to
my work on Goat Island. Thanks must also go to Jon Erickson – an always
thought provoking correspondent; to Steven Connor and Susan Best for
their willingness to share their important research with me; to Erin Hurley,
Sara Warner and Nicholas Ridout for their valuable comments on my work
on animals and affect; and to Carl Lavery for helping me to clarify my work
on Bene and Lavaudant. From the Performance & Philosophy working
group, I would also very much like to thank Freddie Rokem for all his wise
advice over the years and his tireless support of my research; as well as Esa
Kirkkopelto, Will Daddario, Alice Lagaay and Karoline Gritzner for the phil-
osophical expertise and friendship. Thanks to Karoline and Richard Gough
at Aberystwyth University, Craig Smith at the University of Florida, Tony
Fisher and Shaun May at Central School of Speech and Drama, Charlotte de
Mille at the Courtauld, Dunja Njaradi at Chester, and Margherita Laera at
Queen Mary for inviting me to present on this book in its various nascent
forms at their respective institutions. And thanks to Jane Arnfield, Nobuko
Anan, Peter Hutchings and Craig Richardson at Northumbria University,
as well as to my PhD student, Daniel Koczy, who continues to inspire and
teach me with his work on Deleuze and Beckett.
I am also extremely grateful to the following people for assisting me
with the reproduction of images by the artists discussed in the book:
Eikoh Hosoe, for his generous donation of his extraordinary photographs
of Hijikata Tatsumi; Fabiane Moraes at ‘O Mundo de Lygia Clark’; Tamara
Bloomberg at the Kaprow Estate; and Miles Thurlow, Paul Moss and Chris
Morgan at the Workplace Gallery, who represent Marcus Coates. I am also
very grateful to Juliette Caron from the archives at the Théâtre National de
ix