Writing, Performance, and Myth-Work

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O'Sullivan, Simon D.. 2025. 'Writing, Performance, and Myth-Work'. In: Identity Crisis Nertwork Conference. Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia 23 - 24 May 2025. [Conference or Workshop Item]

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Official URL: https://identitycrisisnetwork.com/simon-o-sullivan...

Abstract or Description

My paper will present three recent book projects, all of which are concerned with writing, performance, and what I call myth-work. As far as writing goes, it is especially the 'new' genres of writing that I will address, such as theory-fiction, auto-writing, and art writing. All of these involve a performative element in some manner as well as often being writing from and for more marginalised communities. Myth-work is a name for the claiming of narrative and for practices of self-determination. I will offer up some examples from contemporary art of this kind of practice, attending specifically to those that are performance-based and/or involve a turn to the past as a resource for producing new and different subjectivities in the present and for the future. I will also introduce my own performance-based collaborative practice – or 'performance fiction' - that deals with some of these issues. Lastly, I will link the above with previous work I have done on fictioning, or the materialisation/enactment of fictions within reality. In particular, I will be concerned here with drawing out the implications of fictioning for a critical/creative writing practice and also in developing the idea of fictioning as time-travel (especially in relation to what I will call archaeofictioning).

Item Type:

Conference or Workshop Item (Keynote)