‘O, are you not being Phil?’: notes towards a materialist aesthetics of neo-symbolist performance

Abstract

This article is a playwright's reflection on his continuing evolution into becoming a performer in his own anti-illusionist theatre. His search is for an anti-ideological aesthetic rooted in the kind of direct associative experience that is accessed by performance. The article outlines the impact on his own thinking of, for example, meme theory (Susan Blackmore) and Steven Mithen's The Prehistory of Mind. ‘I continue to experiment towards a materialist performance that reveals otherwise invisible ideological processes without plunging into irrationalism.’