Embodying Wittgenstein’s own aphorism of “you’d be surprised,” this collection of original essays by both artists and academics explores the significance of Wittgenstein’s writings across a diverse field of performance practices, including poetics and choreography, theatre, and psychotherapy, as well as reflections on political thought and ChatGPT.
Fundamentally, the collection shifts the discussion of philosophy and performance away from the well-established distinction between Analytic and Continental traditions to offer examples of Wittgenstein’s inspiration in and for the different practices that are explored in each essay. Between Wittgenstein’s proposals in the Tractatus that “the world is all that is the case” and in the Philosophical Investigations that “words are also deeds,” how might the thought of philosophical questions already inform those of and for performance? How do conceptions of the limits of the one articulate those of the other? And how might such questions be not simply a matter of philosophy or performance alone, but indeed of and for performance philosophy?
Contributors: Né Barros, Charles Bernstein, Simon Bowes, Jonathan Burrows, Miles Champion, Will Daddario, Veronika Darida, Françoise Davoine, Peter S. Dillard, Signe Gjessing, Kenneth Goldsmith, Derek Gottlieb, Anthony Howell, Sam Kinchin-Smith, Alice Lagaay, Sue MacLaine, Ray Monk, Bernard Müller, Marjorie Perloff, Tom Raworth, Max Richter, Bo Tarenskeen, The Aesthetics Group (Dublin), Mischa Twitchin, Lukas M. Verburgt, Peter Verburgt.
Table of Contents:
Introduction, Mischa Twitchin
Chapter 1.Familiarity in Gesture: An Encounter Between Dance and Wittgenstein's Thought, Né Barros
Chapter 2.Pataquerulous Wittgenstein and the Animaladies of Language, Charles Bernstein
Chapter 3. The Possibility of Fact: Sketching an Origin for the Performative, Simon Bowes
Verbal Fog(poem), Miles Champion
Chapter 4. The More One Looks…, Will Daddario and Alice Lagaay
Chapter 5. The Stage of Thoughts: Ludwig Wittgenstein and Josef Nadj, Veronika Darida
Chapter 6. Encountering Wittgenstein, Françoise Davoine
Chapter 7. I’ll Teach You Differences: Wittgenstein Against Philosophical Pseudo-Performance, Peter Dillard
Chapter 8.Conversation between Signe Gjessing, Ray Monk, and Max Richter
Chapter 9. Always One Sentence on Every Page Allowed my Mind to Flower, KennethGoldsmith
Chapter 10. The Fibres, the Fly Bottle, and the Rough Ground: Wittgenstein’s Figuration of Politics, Derek Gottlieb
Chapter 11. Ethics is Aesthetics, Anthony Howell
Chapter 12. Let the Use of the Words Teach You Their Meaning: A Dialogue between Sue MacLaine and Jonathan Burrows
Chapter 13. Reading Jean Bazin with Wittgenstein: Playing Chess or Making Custard?, Bernard Müller
Chapter 14. The Odd Couple: Duchamp and Wittgenstein, Marjorie Perloff
In Memoriam(poem), Tom Raworth
Chapter 15. On Performing Wittgenstein, Bo Tarenskeen
Chapter 16. Wittgenstein’s Use of the Tableau Vivant: Proposition and Group Performance, The Aesthetics Group (Jeanette Doyle, Cathy O’Carroll, Mick O’Hara, and Connell Vaughan)
Chapter 17. Philosophical Problems and Stochastic Parrots: Between Aphorism and Algorithm, Mischa Twitchin
Chapter 18. Wittgenstein Incorporated: A Conversation between Peter and Lukas Verburgt
Index
About the Contributors
About the Author :
Mischa Twitchin is a senior lecturer in the theatre and performance department at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Review :
There are few people with the nerve to reacquaint Wittgenstein and performance, but Mischa Twitchin is one. Having recognised the curious elision of the Analytic tradition from almost all interdisciplinary pairings of thought and theatre, this critically incisive and often playful collection sets about recovering the potential for a practiced poetics of philosophical rigour.
This inventive collection shows that Wittgenstein’s impact on the arts, from poetry to performance, continues to evolve in new directions. By mixing artists and scholars, the volume allows readers to explore surprising lines of influence, and to make their own connections across different forms of writing and thinking. An intellectual treat.
Taken together, the essays here profoundly honor Wittgenstein’s mode of thinking, which is so playful and creative that it was bound to inspire the crossings between thinking and performing to which this book testifies. A much-needed book, in Wittgenstein’s spirit.
A seriously playful approach to the philosophical poetry of one of the 20th century’s most influential thinkers. Twitchin has assembled a veritable treasure trove of performative responses, dialogues, and essays. The eclectic range of practices discussed hang together in a way that Wittgenstein would surely have appreciated, as family resemblance. A wonderful contribution to ongoing debates in Performance Philosophy!
This is a groundbreaking and very exciting collection of academic and creative responses to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s thinking and the ways it has impacted our understanding of being spectators in and of the world, as ‘everything that is the case’. The essays reflect variously on what enables us to perform in the world, even when silence would be most appropriate.
