Connecting Theories

Abstract

Certain critical and performance theories help to elucidate (syn)aesthetics as a fused mode of practice and appreciation, each with a transgressive and ludic core. All of which prioritize the body as the primary force of interpretation and give credence to the significance of all the senses in human perception. Namely, Nietzsche’s arguments for a ‘Dionysian’ artistic impulse; the Russian Formalists theories regarding disruptive linguistics; Barthes’ arguments for ‘pleasurable text’; Kristeva’s theories of transgressive communication; Cixous and Irigarays’ écriture féminine; and the performance theories of Artaud, Novarina, Barker and Broadhurst. These theories all place emphasis on slippage between the verbal and physical, the chthonic and noetic, the ‘felt’ and the ‘understood’. These connections serve to clarify the impulse underpinning the (syn)aesthetic style, its mode of production, immediacy of appreciation and its requisites in interpretation.

We want to hold fast to our senses and to our faith in them — and think their consequences through to the end.

(Nietzsche, 1968: 538)