Done!

Today at noon I will hand in my masters thesis, a paper that examines the emerging dramaturgical role of the performing object in postmodern performance. This study primarily draws on Baudrillard’s theories of the simulacra. I draw links from this and other ideas about postmodern subjectivity to developments in live performance in the twentieth and twenty-first century. My focus is the object’s role in emerging practices and how they facilitate larger projects that provoke, through their own “self-abolishment” critical spectatorship.

You can read that essay on Puppeturgy, a blog that I kept as a research tool during the process. I will continue to write Puppeturgy and compound the resources I have collected there including a bibliography and links to theatre and performance companies, artists, organizations and festivals. For people interested in the dramaturgical aspects of object-based performance, particularly emerging practices that draw on wide ranging sources and do not respect the convenient boundaries of culture or tradition, this might be an interesting resource and I have no doubt that the work I discuss here will draw on the work I see and discuss there and the ideas presented in that ongoing discussion.

I’m beginning to collate my drawings, brainstorms, and outlines for a big push this week before the first meeting with Simon Hart at Puppet Animation Scotland and Dominic Hill at the Traverse next Monday. More soon!