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Perform or Else: From Discipline to Performance
Paperback
ISBN13: 9781041203803
Publisher: Routledge
Published: Dec 22 2026
Pages: 452
Language: English
This 25th anniversary edition of Perform of Else contains the original text which brings together discourses of performance studies, performance management, and technology, and provides new contextual material for contemporary readers.
In this updated edition, Jon McKenzie's groundbreaking work is revisited with fresh perspectives and additional materials that deepen its relevance for today's audience. The book explores the interconnected paradigms of cultural, organisational, and technological performance, demonstrating how they collectively exert powerful and often contradictory pressures to perform...or else. Alongside the original text, this book provides new contextual materials to update and extend the book's relevance for contemporary readers, including:
- Timothy Edkins' 'User Guide to Perform or Else, ' offering readers a highly detailed and nuanced guide to reading the book;
- Edkins' interview with the author, 'Making Perform or Else, ' which focuses on the origins and development of the book within the context of experimental theory and transmedia arts and activism of the 1980s and 90s
- The Revelations of Dr. Kx4l3ndj3r - a short sequel to the original text.
Offering an invaluable and unique contribution to the field of performance studies, this makes for essential reading for both academics and students on Performance Studies and Performance Design courses. It would also be of interest to those in the fields of Organisational Psychology, Science and Technology Studies and Media Studies.
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