Perform or Else: From Discipline to Performance

New
Paperback
2001
$40.29

'Performance' has become one of the key terms for the new century. But what do we mean by 'performance'? In today's world it can refer to experimental art; productivity in the workplace; and the functionality of technological systems. Do these disparate fields bear any relation to each other?
In Perform or Else Jon McKenzie asserts that there is a relationship cultural, organisational, and technological performance. In this theoretical tour de force McKenzie demonstrates that all three paradigms operate together to create powerful and contradictory pressures to 'perform...or else'. This is an urgent and important intervention in contemporary critical thinking. It will profoundly shape our understanding of twenty-first century structures of power and knowledge.

Synopsis

'Performance' has become one of the key terms for the new century. But what do we mean by 'performance'? In today's world it can refer to experimental art; productivity in the workplace; and the functionality of technological systems. Do these disparate fields bear any relation to each other?
In Perform or Else Jon McKenzie asserts that there is a relationship cultural, organisational, and technological performance. In this theoretical tour de force McKenzie demonstrates that all three paradigms operate together to create powerful and contradictory pressures to 'perform...or else'. This is an urgent and important intervention in contemporary critical thinking. It will profoundly shape our understanding of twenty-first century structures of power and knowledge.

$40.29

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5 in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 320
Edition: 1
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 22 Mar 2001
ISBN 10: 0415247691
ISBN 13: 9780415247696

Media Reviews

Overall, I find McKenzie's fluid essaying and profuse theorizing exhilarating. Alternately serious and ludic, vigorously interpretive and rewardingly idiosyncratic, this book is best read in the spirit in which it was written: as performance..
- Theatre Journal, Arthur Sabatini, Arizona State University
In high-spirited prose that careens through both predictable and idiosyncratically selected texts and examples, McKenzie makes the case for rethinking performance as a concept and theory applicable far beyond theatre, performance, and cultural studies..
- Theatre Journal, Arthur Sabatini, Arizona State University
... incredibly smart, provocative, and important..
-Janelle Reinelt, University of California, Irvine
Wholly original. Extremely valuable. A truly remarkable book..
-Philip Auslander, author of Liveness
This tour de force introduces 'performance' as a new practice giving access to a secret network connecting 'performance' in all its uses across the divisions of knowledge. The liminal hinge of this newtork is 'the Challenger Lecture Machine, ' to whose seven Challengers may be added this eighth wonder of the performance world..
-Gregory L. Ulmer, Professor of English, University of Florida

Author Bio

Jon McKenzie is Visiting Professor of Performance Studies at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, where he teaches courses on globalization, experience design, and organizational performance. He also consults as a strategist in the new media industry. His essays include Laurie Anderson for Dummies and Towards a Sociopoetics of Interface Design: etoy, eToys, TOYWAR.