Felipe Cervera

Between 2010 and 2016, scottish artist Katie Paterson (b. 1981) subscribed to a mailing list that alerts astronomers and scientists around the world when the ‘death’ of a star has been observed and recorded. Whenever she received an alarm, Paterson would then write a quick letter announcing the death of that star and send it to a pre-selected gallerist or recipient. The collection of these letters is titled The Dying Star Letters. This essay argues that Paterson’s piece can be considered as a durational performance and be placed in relation to the reawakening of extraterrestrial exploration. In recent years, the increase of astronomical discoveries and innovations has come with a proportionally complex panorama in the relationality between human affairs and the cosmos at large. A cornerstone of that complex relationality is the way in which we name astronomical objects. Naming the cosmos is a performative action that is deeply embedded in a context of scientific knowledge, cultural iconography, religious cosmologies, political ambitions, and philosophical quandaries. When we name a galaxy, a star, a planet or even a crater, we create a symbolic and ideological bond between our material existence and that of a physical entity with which we would otherwise have no cultural relation whatsoever. In this context, Paterson’s gesture throws in sharp relief the limitations of human-centred notions of time, life and death in respect to the non-humanness in and of the cosmos. Paterson’s gesture, however, also allows the universe to come forth on its own durational terms. By cross-analyzing The Dying Star Letters with the performativity of names in an astronomical context, the essay concludes that Paterson’s piece delivers a possibility to re-think classic notions in performance studies such as ‘presence’ and ‘absence’, and, by the same token, offer alternatives to meet, name and interact with the universe.

One of the paramount disciplinary developments that Fluid States, Performances of UnKnowing led to was the imperative to re-examine what “multiplicity” means in the contexts of performance studies, as well as within PSi. This becomes all the more pressing in light of this new journal, Global Performance Studies, or GPS. Multiplicity is one of the ways in which PSi thinks of performance studies and, as a consequence, an ambition of the projects that it launches in the form of conferences, symposiums and other scholarly activities. Correspondingly, multiplicity was one of the main frameworks of Fluid States. What is the kind of multiplicity that Fluid States sought to articulate, and how does it relate to the multiplicity that GPS might enable?

This article argues that for PSi to continue thinking of performance studies as a multiplicity--and therefore, for its disciplinary commitment to the field at-large to render that multiplicity effectively operative and critically productive--the narrative of origins in and of the field needs to be revised in the transit from Fluid States to GPS. That is, we should reconsider the narrative in which a single epicentre holds the historical authorship of the discipline. In order to make this point, the article first reviews a probable history of the idea of multiplicity in PSi using the start point of PSi #10 in Singapore 2004, indicating how the conversations there were paramount for the conceptualization of Fluid States. Thereon, the article recounts my own experience as a visiting correspondent (VC) for the Fluid States clusters in New Delhi, Manila and Melbourne between 2013 and 2015. More than observing a globalized, limitless field, my experience as a VC suggested the limits of a narrative of disciplinary expansion, signaling the gaps between the different local densities that were gathered at every site. Finally, the article argues that more than enabling a globality of performance studies, the transit from Fluid States to GPS might benefit from emphasising a planetary framework for performance studies. The article then goes on to suggest an outline of such a framework, including three ways to understand planetary performance studies: the terrestrial, the disciplinary, and the extraterrestrial. The article concludes by suggesting a way in which the histories of performance studies can be rewritten in planetary multiplicity.

Recent years have seen an increase in extraterrestrial exploration projects. What was once a series of competing displays of Cold War political and military might between the US and the USSR has now re-emerged with international collaborations and fresh contestants that range from newly developed, government-based Space programmes to a growing list of private and corporate investors and entrepreneurs. Historically, performances and performative actions and utterances have been important instruments for the representation and politicization of outer-Space discovery and exploration. An inevitable corollary of the recent developments of Space exploration, therefore, is that diverse performances and performatives in and about Space are also flourishing. Their multiplicity reflects the complexity of contemporary geopolitics as well as the forms that these performances may take, including extreme sports, theatre, music videos, social-media interactions and experimental performance. The increase in expressive possibilities calls for a mode of critical attention that addresses them in their scientific, geopolitical and formal particularity.

Provocation # 2 for PSi 21 Fluid States, Performances of UnKnowing.

The reflection proposes the figure of 'intra-planetary orbits' as a conceptual trope to map the different interactions that will occur throughout 2015 in the frame of the different clusters of Fluid States.

Short commentary on the CIFET edition 2009. The piece stresses the importance of the event in the Middle East - North Africa theatre circuit.

Breve comentario en la edición 2009 del Festival Internacional de Teatro Experimental de El Cairo. El ensayo busca remarcar la importancia del evento en el circuito teatral del Medio Oriente y norte de África.

In this paper I elaborate a brief overview of the history of Ta´ziyeh performances. The piece is the first to explore the subject in Mexican theatre scholarship.

En este ensayo elaboro un breve resumen de la historia de la tradición Ta´ziyeh. El texto es el primero en abordar el tema en la academia teatral mexicana.