Call for papers
PERFORMANCE PARADIGM (#7), 2011
Images of Happiness
Edited by Helena Grehan, Edward Scheer and Peter Eckersall
“In case of rapture this car will be empty” reads a bumper–bar sticker popular among certain Evangelical Christian sects. In this event, it is envisaged that the world will be ravaged and only true believers will be saved in a performance of ectatic, glorious mutual transformation: an image of happiness in extremis replicated throughout the violent ideologies and practices of fundamentalist cults around the world. A literal exemplification of Zygmunt Bauman’s provocation: ‘Is progress towards happiness to be measured by thinning out the bevy of fellow travellers?’ Meanwhile, other slightly less eschatological experiences of happiness are no less performative nor less deeply felt in the body. Ecstasies of sex, food, narcotics, shopping, travel, sunshine, ‘magnificient and excessive’ (Bauman) forms of consumption alongside the thrills of the will to power are all vehicles for the pursuit of happiness. As such they are transformative of contemporary experience, in modelling, controlling and inspiring states of happiness. In this respect, performance might always be an artifact conceived of as an ‘Image of Happiness’ (Abramovic), something radically different to everyday neurosis and potentially generative of new propositions for life.
Happiness is a spiritual and revolutionary utopia, a quiet moment beside a stream, a late capitalist global shopping spree: “Once again in postmodernity we find ourselves … posing against the misery of power the joy of being.” (Hardt and Negri Empire 413). Buy now and save! Happiness in the home. Bring joy to your family this Christmas…. “Bang, Bang! Happiness … is a warm gun”.
This issue of Performance Paradigm calls for papers on the art of happiness and considers the following questions:
• the doctrine of the pursuit of happiness in both the political and the performative realm?
• If happiness involves the ‘acquisition of things other people have no hope of acquiring’ (Bauman), how do contemporary practices of making and experiencing theatre translate or embody this problem for artists and audiences?
• Sara Ahmed argues that the doctrine of happiness delimits potentials and that the risk of unhappiness opens onto possibility and transformation. Is this transcriptable in aesthetic terms?
• How do we, as performers, theorists, critics, work through the complexities and contradictions the ‘question’ of happiness offers?
• What might or can Abramovic’s ‘Image of Happiness’ look like?
We seek scholarly contributions including essays, visual documentation, interviews, and translations. Please send proposals, including a short abstract or description to:
Peter Eckersall
(eckersal@unimelb.edu.au).
The due date for proposals is November 30, 2010. Final material will be due by 31 March 2011. Performance Paradigm (#7) will be published in July 2011. Please visit our website for further information and instructions for submission: www.performanceparadigm.net.
Performance Paradigm is a refereed journal published by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at UNSW and edited by Helena Grehan, Peter Eckersall and Edward Scheer.