Performative Uncertainty and Antifragile Theatre

Authors

  • Konrad Wojnowski Performativity Studies, Jagiellonian University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13136/sjtds.v4i2.145

Keywords:

antifragility, uncertainty, dramaturgy, catastrophe, theatre theory

Abstract

In my paper I confront two different ways of understanding and making use of uncertainty in theatre. The first one, which I will call “dramaturgical uncertainty”, dominates in the Western tradition of story-focused theatre practice and relates to Aristotelian Poetics and his notion of peripeteia as a sudden “change in fortune”. The second one, which I want to call “performative uncertainty”, can be applied – generally speaking – to theatrical events that respond to and take advantage of spontaneous and unpredictable factors. In the latter case I will understand uncertainty on the basis of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’stheory of antifragility (2012) which convincingly criticizes the idea of “overplanning” of complex systems and offers an alternative model of organizing performance that can also be applied in the context of theatre (and its organization). My theoretical observations will be grounded in the analysis of Revolution Now! by Gob Squad (2010), a very peculiar example of postdramatic theatre in which participation is at the same time used to introduce indeterminacy into the performance and captured within a narrative structure to reach unexpected conclusions.

Author Biography

  • Konrad Wojnowski, Performativity Studies, Jagiellonian University

    Konrad Wojnowski (b. 1987) – works as an assistant at the Jagiellonian University (Performativity Studies Department). He wrote two books: Aesthetics of Disturbance (in Polish: Estetyka zakłócenia) and Productive Catastrophes (Pożyteczne katastrofy). The first one is devoted to different strategies of disturbance in the cinema of Michael Haneke; the second one deals with the concept of catastrophe in the context of contemporary technoculture. His research interests span theories of performativity, philosophy of communication, and various intersections between culture, science, and technology. Currently he is leading a research grant regarding the impact of probability theory on avant-garde art and science-fiction literature in the 20 th and 21 st centuries.

References

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Published

2018-12-17

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 2 (2018): Kin(g)ship and Power

Section

Miscellany

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