The Remaining Act

After creating Outwards (Exploration #1), a piece that took measure of the implications of virtuality in technologically mediated performance, David Van Dijcke, in collaboration with musician Benjamin Cools and three talented performers, turns the tables around and fathoms the position of the hardware that is eclipsed when the lights turn on.

The Remaining Act poses the question what could be a bare life of the performer, inspired by the work of Italian political philosopher Giorgio Agamben. It is a research on the state of performance in contemporary society and the possible use of the figure of the performer as a model to analyze in practice the impact of structures (of power, of politics, of law, of economics, of a performable script) on a body (belonging to subject, a person, a citizen, a human being, a performer). How can this performer’s – if we presuppose that all of these categories are instances of enactment – body overcome its functionality within these structures? By becoming dys-functional? Or through a maximization or absolute engagement of all of its capacities? Between these two extreme states: what is it that remains?After creating Outwards (Exploration #1), a piece that took measure of the implications of virtuality in technologically mediated performance, David Van Dijcke, in collaboration with musician Benjamin Cools and three talented performers, turns the tables around and fathoms the position of the hardware that is eclipsed when the lights turn on.

The Remaining Act poses the question what could be a bare life of the performer, inspired by the work of Italian political philosopher Giorgio Agamben. It is a research on the state of performance in contemporary society and the possible use of the figure of the performer as a model to analyze in practice the impact of structures (of power, of politics, of law, of economics, of a performable script) on a body (belonging to subject, a person, a citizen, a human being, a performer). How can this performer’s – if we presuppose that all of these categories are instances of enactment – body overcome its functionality within these structures? By becoming dys-functional? Or through a maximization or absolute engagement of all of its capacities? Between these two extreme states: what is it that remains?