Some words have to be explicitly uttered, Lenore. Only by actually uttering certain words does one really DO what one SAYS. 'Love' is one of those words, performative words. Some words can literally make things real.
Most actors and actresses are performative as people. It goes part and parcel with the profession and New York actors who are out of work, or actors anywhere out of work, are manic because you never know when the next job is going to come.
I've got a lot of energy at my shows, I'm very performative; that gave me the idea, I want to try to translate that into a musical project, having the same energy I have onstage and on my album.
Most actors and actresses are performative as people.
If you're a "good" teacher, somebody who is responsible or careful, teaching takes time. Teaching is performative. Students nowadays evaluate you and there's a lot made in these evaluations about how you perform. Maybe you don't have the greatest delivery in the world. But you know a lot, have a lot to offer. So that's pretty unsettling. We've become so image-based and performance-based as a society. You have to be ready to appear on Jimmy Kimmel Live! at any moment.
I wanted to capture the excitement of house music, almost like a four-four beat, and the best way to do that was to use a language that was rhythmic and performative.
I take literature as a really serious human activity. It's not just a playful thing. It can be hilarious and wonderful and performative, but I think it's really serious.
So capital is in fact borderless; that's the problem. On the other hand capital has to keep borders alive in order for this kind of cross-border trade to happen. So therefore the idea of borderlessness has a performative contradiction within it which has to be kept alive.
To say that gender is performative is a little different because for something to be performative means that it produces a series of effects. We act and walk and speak and talk in ways that consolidate an impression of being a man or being a woman.
