Overview

This book analyses how artists work through and reflect upon processes that together form a posthumanist condition. It critically revises the figure of the ""cyborg"", central to posthumanist thinking and performance, and proposes an alternative figure through which to think about and create with technology: the ""apparatus"". It draws on the philosophy of Giorgio Agamben, Donna Haraway and other contemporary thinkers of ecology and technology; recent philosophical theories, such as speculative realism, object-oriented ontology, dark ecology and new materialism; as well as the work of leading contemporary performance makers, such as Kris Verdonck, Mette Ingvartsen, Guemhyung Jeong, Romeo Castellucci and Okada Toshiki. Through doing so, the book captures an important shift away from anthropocentrism and the consequences for the dramaturgies that subsequently unfold.

Full Product Details

Author:   Kristof van Baarle (University of Antwerp, Belgium) ,  Adrian Kear (Wimbledon College of Arts, University of the Arts London, UK) ,  Professor Heike Roms (University of Exeter, UK) ,  Joe Kelleher (Roehampton University, UK)
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint:   Methuen Drama
ISBN:  

9781350347359

ISBN 10:   1350347353
Pages:   256
Publication Date:   30 October 2025
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

1. Introduction: figures of posthumanism in performance 1.1 Posthumanism and performance 1.2 What is a figure? 1.3 Dramaturgy and methodology of the book 2.Cyborg Figures and Cyborg-Posthumanism 2.1 What is a cyborg figure? 2.2 ORLAN: embodiment as answer to information? 2.3 Stelarc’s obsolete body: transhumanism or posthumanism? 2.4 Eduardo Kac and the anthropological machine 2.5 Instrumental demonstration: CREW’s techno-performances 2.6 The conceptual limits of the cyborg 3. Threshold. Between cyborgs and apparatuse: Mette Ingvartsen and Guemhyung Jeong 4.Apparatus Figures and Apparatus-Posthumanism 4.1 What is an apparatus figure? 4.2 Beyond the subject: Romeo Castellucci’s Four Seasons Restaurant and Giudizio, Possibilità, Essere 4.3 Marionettes and Object-figures: Kris Verdonck (1) 4.4 Phantasms: post-digital figures in Michiel Vandevelde’s Anti-thesis and Andrade 4.5 The theatre as psycho-political apparatus: Toshiki Okada’s depsychologized performance environments 4.6 Posthuman Landscapes: Kris Verdonck (2) 5. Conclusion. Indisciplinary theatres and posthumanist theatres Bibliography Index

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Author Information

Kristof van Baarle is post-doctoral researcher at Antwerp University’s Research Centre for Visual Poetics, BE. As a dramaturg, he works with Kris Verdonck and Michiel Vandevelde among others. Together with Verdonck, he conducts an artistic research project on Beckett and Noh at KASK – School of Arts. He is an associate editor of Performance Research and his work has been published in various journals and book chapters. He teaches regularly in various universities and art schools, such as P.A.R.T.S., KASK and the universities of Antwerp and Ghent.

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