per-formance + trans-formation

Some parts: Manchev, Bojan (2015) ‘The New Arachne: Towards a poetics of dynamic forms’, in Performance Research 20:1, 18-26.

p. 1 – 3

Form cannot be thought without its limit, and therefore without transformation. It could reach its limit through its activity only: per-formance. Hence, it is impossible to think the activity of form – per-formance – without a conception of trans-formation —> enlargement of the notion of performance and transformation as central components of a new poetic or poetological conception of form

figure (here): ????? a dynamic category, which, while exceeding the fictional figurative form, appears as the critical potential of the form to think itself as well as to operate as an instrument for reflexive intervention in the field of production and operation of forms themselves.

p. 5

Weaving fulfils the operation of the inscription of matter in signifying form without a second, mediating matter, like in painting or in writing. Weaving is the technique of ‘becomingimage’ of material, or matter: it is an oikonomic onto-technique. Such is the hypothetical surplus value of the figure of the one who weaves figuri: technique is the immanent movement of the form-image as a dynamic of matter. Movement: the persistence of form.

p. 6

Arachne’s myth reveals the immanent connection between metamorphosis and tekhné; it reveals the tekhné as a non-substantial substance of change. Metamorphosis is a technical operation. That that disrupts immobility of substance is the extra element of metamorphosis. This extraordinary element is tekhné.

p. 9

Arachne’s organic implosion – the implosion of her organs deep inside her life-force, her auto-absorption – mobilizes another kind of metabolism, another profound dynamic of the body. This kind of dynamic is the dynamic of metamorphosis. Arachne’s body externalizes itself by disorganizing itself; it externalizes itself as a woven fibre, in the form of technique.

The technique immanent to the body: the disorganization.

The metamorphosis demonstrates the technical power of the body – or rather, the tekhné, as it’s only an-archic power, it’s only ‘substance’. The most appropriate name of the force of this metamorphosis would then be resistance.

p. 10

That is why Arachne’s myth is much more than an allegory for the seizing of power over the body, taking possession of the body – the basic operation of every (bio-)politics; this myth draws the outlines of another operation, a counter-operation that makes the total seizure of power over the bodies, impossible for good: the tekhno-aisthetic operation. The basic structure of the tekhnoaisthetic operation presents itself like this: the body only transforms itself as the result of the invention of new techniques, through which the body itself – thanks to its technical dynamic – becomes a new arm: or a new organ, as the etymology of the word ‘arm’ shows.