Perform or Else ‘Performance’ has become one of the key terms for the new century. But what do we mean by ‘performance’? In today’s world it can refer to experimental art, productivity in the workplace, and the functionality of technological systems. Do these disparate performances bear any historical relation to each other? In Perform or Else, Jon McKenzie uncovers an uncanny relationship between cultural, organizational, and technological performance. In this theoretical tour de force, McKenzie demonstrates that all three paradigms can operate together to create powerful and contradictory pressures to ‘perform—or else’. His startling readings of the Challenger mission will ignite new lines of research, while his explosive conclusion—that performance will be to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries what discipline was to the eighteenth and nineteenth—is an exhilarating realization of how culture, business, and science have become hyperlinked through globalization. McKenzie then goes on to outline a vision of resistant strategies for the future. This is an urgent and important intervention into contemporary critical thinking. It will profoundly shape our understanding of twenty-first-century structures of power and knowledge. Jon McKenzie is Assistant Professor of interface design and multimedia at The University of the Arts (Philadelphia). He also consults in the new media industry. London and New York "It seems to me not unlikely that with the publication of this book McKenzie will become, like Deleuze, Foucault and Butler, a point of orientation for future work on modes of Western Thought." Marvin Carlson, author of Performance: A Critical Introduction "This tour de force introduces 'perfumance' as a new practice giving access to a secret network connecting "performance" in all its uses across the divisions of knowledge. The liminal hinge of this network is 'the Challenger Lecture Machine,' to whose seven Challengers may be added this eighth wonder of the performance world." Gregory L. Ulmer, Professor of English, University of Florida "Wholly original. Extremely valuable. A truly remarkable book." Philip Auslander, author of Liveness Perform or Else: FROM DISCIPLINE TO PERFORMANCE JON MCKENZIE First published 2001 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane,London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street,New York,NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. © 2001 Jon McKenzie All rights reserved.No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,mechanical,or other means,now known or here- after invented,including photocopying and recording,or in any information storage or retrieval system,without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data McKenzie,Jon,1960- Perform or else:from discipline to performance / Jon McKenzie. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1.Performance—Psychological aspects.1.Title. BF481 .M395 2001 302—dc21 00-046014 ISBN 0-415-24769-1 (pbk) ISBN 0-415-24768-3 (hbk) ISBN 0-203-42005-5 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-44525-2 (Adobe eReader Format) for ij, vw, & sloo CONTENTS ILLUSTRATIONS viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix INTRODUCTION 1 0. Challenges 3 PART I. PERFORMANCE PARADIGMS 27 1. The Efficacy of Cultural Performance 29 2. The Efficiency of Organizational Performance 55 3. The Effectiveness of Technological Performance 95 PART II. THE AGE OF GLOBAL PERFORMANCE 137 4. Challenger Lecture Machine 139 5. Challenging Forth: The Power of Performance 155 6. Professor Challenger and the Performance Stratum 173 PART III. PERFUMANCE 191 7. Professor Challenger and the Disintegration Machine 193 8. The Catachristening of HMS Challenger 205 9. Professor Rutherford and Gay Sci Fi 221 10. Jane Challenger, Disastronaut 243 NOTES 276 BIBLIOGRAPHY 290 INDEX 298 vii Illustrations Page xii. Metanephrops challengeri specimen collected by HMS Challenger between Australia and New Zealand, 1874. Photo: National History Museum, London. Page 1. Earth as seen from Apollo 11. Courtesy of the National Aeronautics and Space Agency. Page 4. Forbes cover. Reprinted by permission of Forbes Magazine © 2000.1994. Page 19. Diagram of the general theory. Courtesy of the author. Page 27. Young Astronaut. © Willinger FPG International 1998. Page 91. Infinity loop of social drama and stage drama. Image courtesy of Richard Schechner. Page 106. Peformance Computing cover reprinted by permission of CMP Media Inc. (formerly Miller Freeman, Inc.) and Carter Dow. Page 134. Bumper No. 8, a captured German V-2 rocket, lifts off from Cape Canaveral. This rocket exploded in flight, but was the first to lift off from the Cape. Image courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Page 137. Smoke and vapor cloud of Challenger accident captured by a GOES environmental satellite operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Image reproduced from Report to the President by the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident. Page 155. Martin Heidegger. Gert Schultz. Reprinted by permission of AKG London. Page 190. Artist’s simulation of a CS First Boston advertisement. Courtesy of the author. Page 191. US Army Mental Test. Courtesy of the US Government Printing Office. Page 198. Strata diagram. From Gilles Deleuze, Foucault, Trans. Seán Hand. © 1988 University of Minnesota and The Athlone Press. Page 206. HMS Challenger. Reprinted by permission of the National History Museum. Page 222. Professor William Rutherford. Reprinted by permission of The Wellcome Trust Medical Photographic Library. Page 228. Arthur Conan Doyle in his Professor Challenger disguise. Reprinted by permission of the Conan Doyle Society. Page 239. Artist’s simulation of the Amerika Bomber mission. Reprinted by permission of The Sangar Archive. Page 243. Professor Baltan model. Courtesy of the author. viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Buried deep within the writing of this text there lies a paradox of sorts, one that came to my attention years ago. I had just discovered the performance art of Laurie Anderson and happened to read Jean-François Lyotard on the postmodern condition of performativity. What struck me then still resonates today: "performance" can be read as both experimentation and normativity. This paradox, if it is one, forms the kernel of Perform or Else. The performance I began studying years ago is not the same perform- ance I study today. Nor is the writer the same writer. Foucault once said that the books he wrote constituted an experience for him, noting that an "expe- rience is something you come out of changed." Perform or Else constitutes such an experience-book for me. I have attempted to theorize performance in a general framework and in doing so my world has been transformed. The theory proposed here is framed as a rehearsal, for the performance it addresses is not yet in full production. Even as currently installed, however, this performance exceeds the scope of my inquiry, and I have tried to indicate areas where additional study and reflection are needed. I suspect other areas may be found. Whether these tasks fall to me or another, I trust they will be taken up at some point. My research's early development was guided by Peggy Phelan, Richard Schechner, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, and Michael Taussig, the first three of whom read an early version of this text, as did Joseph Roach and José Munoz. Their comments and critical insights have been invaluable. More recently, readings by Janelle Reinelt and Herbert Blau have been most helpful as I refined the manuscript into the present text. Diana Taylor, Peggy Phelan, Una Chaudhuri, and Arthur Bartow provided me the opportunity to develop some of this research into studio and seminar courses at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. I would also like to thank the many students who participated in these courses and the folks I've worked with through NYU's Innovation Center: Vincent Doogan, Jeffrey Lane, Joseph Hargitai, Jodi Arlyn Goldberg, and Sana Odeh. Paul Clark, Gwyneth Campling, and Miranda Lowe of the British Natural History Museum contributed to my research of HMS Challenger specimens and Dennis Jenkins to my research of Amerika Bomber documents. I'd like to give the warmest of thanks to Talia Rodgers, my editor at Routledge, for her enthusiasm, support, and insight into this project; kind thanks also to Kate Chenevix Trench, Matt Broughton, Rosie Waters, Alison Kelly, and Heather Vickers at Routledge for their hard work in turning this project into a book. Special thanks to Peggy Phelan and Richard Schechner for all their support, criticism, and generosity. ix The sites of one's writing brush up against the places where one lives and loves. In New York, I have been fortunate to draw upon a wealth of friends and colleagues. I am especially grateful to the following people for their generous support and friendship-Jeffrey Schulz, Karin Campbell, Melissa Goldstein, Laura Trippi, Ken Weaver, Fabio Roberti, Erika Yeomans, Jane Yeomans, Deborah Velick, Cathy Lynn Gasser, Andruid Kearne, Melissa Lang, Amanda Claybaugh, and Martin Puchner. I've also been enriched by the support and work of Ilana Abramovitch, Gabrielle Barnett, Amanda Barrett, John Bell, Lori Brau, Jessica Chalmers, Jan Cohen-Cruz, Angelika Festa, Jackie Hayes, Christian Herold, Elke Lampe, Jill Lane, Dell Lemmon, Gary Maciag, Richard McKewen, Frédéric Maurin, Jessica Payne, Jim Peck, Rebecca Schneider, Mady Schutzman, Robert Sember, Joseph Simmons, Mark Sussman, Nicole Ridgeway, Judy Rosenthal, Mariellen Sanford, Leslie Satin, Louis Scheeder, Teresa Senft, Marta Ulvaeus, Amy Underhill, Scott Westerfeld, and Martin Worman. Special thanks to Toni Sant and Cindy Rosenthal. In Philadelphia, I've received support and encouragment at The University of the Arts from Virginia Red, Laura Zarrow, Chris Garvin, Jeff Ryder, Barry Dornfeld and my students in the Multimedia Department.