A Summary and Application of Presence and Resistance: Postmodernism and Cultural Politics in Contemporary American Performance :: Research Papers

A Summary and Application of Presence and Resistance Postmodernism and cultural Politics in Contemporary American Performance Here it is a book seen from the outside. A book is wholly a book when seen from the outside. Seen from the inside, a book is not a book, merely a train motor at night - Michael Goulish In his book Presence and Resistance, Philip Auslander responds to the claims of many vainglorious cultural theorists that recent procedure has been unable to engage in political critique. He argues contemporary performance can - and has - mounted a critique of postmodern politics. He holds up performance of the 1980s as an sheath of politically critical (what he terms loathsome) performance, claiming it carved a space for political critique by questioning, or reconstructing, the authority of the doers presence. He breaks his argument into two parts. First, he positions rebarbative performance of the 1980s within postmodern mass media culture and identifies it as a res ponse to the failure of the 1960s avant-garde. Second, he examines the resistant strategies performers of the 1980s active to deconstruct presence and mount political critique. He focuses mainly on performers Laurie Anderson, Spalding Gray, and The Wooster Group, and secondarily on comedians Andy Kauffman and Sandra Bernhard to illustrate his points. Part I will summarise Auslanders argument, and Part II will use his insights to discuss Michael Goulishs book, 39 Microlectures in Proximity of Performance, which gains relevance as a resistant text in light of Auslanders analysis. Part I Auslander takes cadence to situate the performances of the 1980s within the context of postmodern culture onwards launching his main argument on the strategies resistant performance employed. The mediatized, information-saturated, milieu of mass media culture, he argues, is paralyzing. Paralysis extends to the political sphere, where even the most earnest political critique is neutralized by the fact that one essential participate in the very activity that is being denounced... to denounce it (Jameson qtd. Auslander 23). Auslander acknowledges mechanised cultures impact on political critique but refuses to accept the conclusions of other major cultural/media theorists that a politically resistant performance aesthetic has not yet been developed, or that performers can only find a voice by rejecting mainstream culture altogether. Instead, he argues that performers of the 1980s succeeded in critiquing postmodern cultural politics and did so, necessarily, from within mediatized postmodern culture. Auslander explains the significance of internal critique, arguing that resistant performance of the 1980s grew from a rejection of the interference fringe approach of the 1960s avant garde.