A New Performativity: Wearables and Body-Devices

Abstract

In their relatively short history, wearables and body-devices have evolved from cyborg-like extensions and utilitarian solutions aimed at enhancing efficiency, to poetic representations and experiences that give form to the imagination through indirect and abstract transformations. These new body-artefacts, in particular those that directly consider the body’s capacity for movement, afford a new kind of performativity that is as much experiential as it is representational. By engaging in an embodied, pre-verbal discourse such works encourage observer empathy in a way that shifts from traditional performance forms such as dance and theatre. Observer can be interactor and roles of performer and audience are blurred or no longer apply. This article examines the emergence of this new performativity. The works cited are examined in relation to Heideggerian notions of poeisis and exstasis, poeticisation and enchantment. An analysis of the evolution of wearables and body-devices in relation to their inherent performativity has been lacking. This article addresses this gap.