Definitional Disruptions

1 Dec 2012-2 Feb 2013

Overview

In his seminal sociological work, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Erving Goffman describes social interaction revolving around a gathering consensus on the definition of a given situation. Definitional disruptions are the moments, much feared by some or eagerly anticipated by others, which rock the whole boat and throw the nature of a social situation into doubt. The works by Nel Aerts, Filip Gilissen and Hedwig Houben in Definitional Disruptions place interruptions into the established relationships between artists and their works, between the performer and the audience. Definitional Disruptions investigates the potential for the persona of the artist figure as a tool in bringing these dislocations about.