Prototypicality and the Performance Paradigm

The concept of 'performance' is often used paradigmatically to organise phenomenoma and render these phenomena coherent and comprehensible. So, for example, Bernard Baars makes extensive use of performance and theatre models when talking about consciousness and cognition within his Global Workspace theory. This use of performance paradigm is also found, and expounded, in the work of Robert Crease, John Mackenzie, Philip Auslander, J.L. Austin, Judith Butler and others. What tends to be left out of this analysis is the exact nature of the idea which is underpins the paradigm, or more accurately, the image of performance which is being metaphorically invoked whenever the paradigm is used.

One of the ways in which the concept of 'performance' or more narrowly 'theatre' is understood is through the mobilisation of conceptual categories. These are not the classical categories bounded within definitions based on necessary and sufficient conditions but are radial categories oriented around prototypical examples. These prototypical examples tend not to be the kind of events one would find within much of contemporary and experimental theatre, but are more likely to be akin to traditional practices using highly formulaic conventions.

The implication therefore is that the performance paradigm which is applied as a conceptual framework for understanding abstract phenomena is based upon models of theatre and performance which are largely outmoded and hightly conservative.