Objectives:

Throughout the so-called "performative turn" of the last decades, cultural studies has been focussing on the pivotal role of activity - of acting, doing, and producing. This emphasis on practice and execution has highlighted man's role as homo creator and homo generator, while neglecting dimensions of passivity. The question of the pathic dimension of the performative - that is of the passive within the active - lies at the centre of this habilitation project. The research objects are aesthetic phenomena that could be described as forms of restraint or non-action. Especially in the theatre, which is generally seen as the art form of action par excellence, the question of restraint opens new theoretical avenues to previously underexplored aspects. The hypothesis that every form of restraint requires a staged framework within which it can appear as a form of non-action will serve as starting point. The staging of restraint constitutes theatrical forms of negation, whether in practices of religious asceticism, political resistance, or the artistic avant-garde. Non-action, omission, even self-abandonment, can thus be described as the elements that trigger the unpredictable or unplanned - i.e. the emergent dimensions of the performative. Therefore, the research will focus on the interrelation between doing and not-doing, norm and divergence, and staging and emergence in aesthetic processes.


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