Perform Or Else: From Discipline to Performance

Front Cover
Psychology Press, 2001 - Business & Economics - 306 pages
'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.
 

Contents

THE EFFICACY OF CULTURAL PERFORMANCE
25
THE EFFICIENCY OF ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE
51
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TECHNOLOGICAL PERFORMANCE
91
THE AGE OF GLOBAL PERFORMANCE
133
CHALLENGER LECTURE MACHINE
135
CHALLENGING FORTH THE POWER OF PERFORMANCE
151
PROFESSOR CHALLENGER AND THE PERFORMANCE STRATUM
169
PERFUMANCE
187
PROFESSOR CHALLENGER AND THE DISINTEGRATION MACHINE
189
THE CATACHRISTENING OF HMS CHALLENGER
201
PROFESSOR RUTHERFORD AND GAY SCI FI
217
JANE CHALLENGER DISASTRONAUT
239
NOTES
270
BIBLIOGRAPHY
280
INDEX
288
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Page 11 - ... who decides what knowledge is, and who knows what needs to be decided? In the computer age, the question of knowledge is now more than ever a question of government.

About the author (2001)

Jon McKenzie is Visiting Professor of Performance Studies at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, where he teaches courses on globalization, experience design, and organizational performance. He also consults as a strategist in the new media industry. His essays include Laurie Anderson for Dummies and Towards a Sociopoetics of Interface Design: etoy, eToys, TOYWAR.

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