Certain Fragments: Texts and Writings on Performance

by Tim Etchells, Peggy Phelan (Foreword)

What is the relationship between performance and play? Between performance and technology? Between performance and death? Certain Fragments is an extraordinary exploration of what lies at the heart of contemporary theatre. Written by the artistic director of Forced Entertainment, acknowledged to be Britains most brilliant experimental theatre company (Guardian), Certain Fragments investigates the processes of devising performance, the role of writing in an interdisciplinary theatre, and the influence of the city on contemporary art practice. Tim Etchells unique and provocative voice shifts from intimate anecdote to critical analysis and back again. And as in his theatre-making so in his with Certain Fragments Etchells disrupts traditional notions of creative, academic, and intellectual work. The book is an exciting and radical fusion of story-telling and criticism. It also makes available, for the first time, four seminal Forced Entertainment texts by Etchells.

Genres: Theatre, Art, Nonfiction

232 pages, Paperback

First published April 8, 1999

About the author

Tim Etchells is an English artist, writer, and educator whose work spans performance, fiction, visual art, installation, and critical writing. He is best known as the artistic director of Forced Entertainment, an experimental performance company he helped found in 1984. His practice explores language, presence, repetition, and the dynamics between audience and performer, often blurring boundaries between theatre, literature, and conceptual art. Etchells has published fiction including Endland Stories, The Dream Dictionary for the Modern Dreamer, and The Broken World, and has written widely on contemporary performance for publications and institutions. As a visual artist, he has created text-based installations, video pieces, and large-scale public artworks. He has taught internationally and holds a professorship in Performance and Writing at Lancaster University. Etchells has also collaborated with numerous artists and makers across disciplines, developing works for theatres, galleries, and public spaces. Recognized for his innovation and influence, he has received major awards and residencies and continues to shape contemporary performance and interdisciplinary artistic practice.

Reviews

[Xavier Roelens · Rating 2 out of 5]

Vooral de essays uit het eerste deel boeiden me en hebben wat ideetjes opgeleverd. Voor de toneelteksten en de recensies kon ik mij niet concentreren.

[Mitchel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tim Etchell's essays are some of the most probing and eloquent writing on theatre and performance art. The photographs of Forced Entertainment's rehearsals and productions are beautiful. The performance scripts fail to convey the mysterious and strange power concocted by their productions, and Etchell's program notes and journalistic pieces on other experimental artists lack the power of his earlier essays. This book conjures the experimental performance scene of the 1990s like few other texts, and will make you wistful for a time with real possibilities and potentials, before neoliberal capital enwrapped society in a chokehold.

[Arun Singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best writings on performance and theatre.

[Eli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strange and interesting guy interested in the political meanings in performance structure

[Elliot · Rating 1 out of 5]

Some parts are interesting and useful accounts of their methods. The rest is indecipherable twaddle, badly written.