Perform or Else: From Discipline to Performance - Tapa dura

"Overall, I find McKenzie's fluid essaying and profuse theorizing exhilarating. Alternately serious and ludic, vigorously interpretive and rewardingly idiosyncratic, this book is best read in the spirit in which it was written: as performance.." -"Theatre Journal, Arthur Sabatini, Arizona State University "In high-spirited prose that careens through both predictable and idiosyncratically selected texts and examples, McKenzie makes the case for rethinking performance as a concept and theory applicable far beyond theatre, performance, and cultural studies.." -"Theatre Journal, Arthur Sabatini, Arizona State University ..."incredibly smart, provocative, and important.." -Janelle Reinelt, University of California, Irvine "Wholly original. Extremely valuable. A truly remarkable book.." -Philip Auslander, author of "Liveness "This tour de force introduces 'performance' as a new practice giving access to a secret network connecting 'performance' in all its uses across the divisions of knowledge. The liminal hinge of this newtork is 'the Challenger Lecture Machine, ' to whose seven Challengers may be added this eighth wonder of the performance world.." -Gregory L. Ulmer, Professor of English, University of Florida

'Performance' has become one of the key terms for the new century. But what do we mean by 'performance'? In today's world it can refer to experimental art; productivity in the workplace; and the functionality of technological systems. Do these disparate fields bear any relation to each other?
In Perform or Else Jon McKenzie asserts that there is a relationship cultural, organisational, and technological performance. In this theoretical tour de force McKenzie demonstrates that all three paradigms operate together to create powerful and contradictory pressures to 'perform...or else'. This is an urgent and important intervention in contemporary critical thinking. It will profoundly shape our understanding of twenty-first century structures of power and knowledge.