– Nociception Theatrician – A report by Esther Neff on the panel discussion “WHO CAN WRITE ABOUT PERFORMANCE ART?”

A report on the panel discussion “WHO CAN WRITE ABOUT PERFORMANCE ART?” presented by PERFORMA Institute and NYU Steinhardt at Judson Church, 04/24/2014. By Esther Neff on the Panoply Blog

This is a written response to a panel discussion. I will understand the panel as a public performance, problematically attempting to identify the assumptions, intentions, concerns, and theoretical positions of the panelist-performers and then to judge success or failure in their realizations, complications, and expressions of these. Subjective judgment will be used to declare the panel’s cultural relevance and value, and to show where the panel is without cultural relevance and value, each at my own discretion. Throughout this critical explication, judgment, and process of (e)valuation, my own theories and opinions will inevitably emerge, combining my embodied experience as a witness with my synthesizing thought processes as performed during and after the performance of the panel. I will also write in a style that parodies abstract “art language” as it exists in dialogue with philosophy, social theory, and other formal systemizations of nooespheres (1).

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