Posthuman domestic space as a becoming-machine in performance art

Abstract

Domestic space can be considered a cross-disciplinary subject, not only of art and architecture but also of philosophy, sociology, geography, and anthropology, thanks to the multidirectional correlations. This paper examines domestic space as a cross-disciplinary subject, too, with a qualitative phenomenological research method because this research approaches space as the collection of experiences, like in phenomenology, concerning the perception and the body. Through an interdisciplinary literature review, the notions of domesticity and dwelling are investigated focusing on the notion of experience. Following these notions, the concepts of becoming and machine are explored by Deleuze and Guattari to reach the arguments on co-living that connect to critical posthuman thought. Braidotti’s concept of becoming-machine is interpreted together with Haraway’s and Grosz’s contemporary arguments on becoming and co-living. In this scope, the research has reached the concepts on metastability and performativity in relation to posthuman experiences of co-living. These concepts are associated with the examples from the contemporary performance artworks. The performances of Schweder & Shelley, Gómez-Egaña and McRae are analyzed focusing on the experience that includes the posthuman possibilities for domesticity as a result of this research, aiming to rethink the relations between human and non-human in domestic space.

Keywords

• Becoming-machine
• Domestic space
• Metastability
• Posthuman
• Performance