This book draws upon recent research in cognitive neuroscience and phenomenology to examine how and why contemporary performance affects the senses. Neurological patterns are established through our physical interactions with the environment and the senses are central to these processes. The book's central premise is that sensorial perception is fundamental to the transformational potential of theatre. Di Benedetto argues that understanding how the brain and body connect through our experience of the visual, aural, tactile and aromatic can enrich our responses to performance, as ‘attentive’ spectators, while knowledge of how we perceive and process sensory stimuli and the role of the senses in our ontological experience provides us with the ‘tools to create a viscerally exciting theatre fit for today’ (p. 89).
The focus is on contemporary performance, as opposed to what the author refers to as a ‘traditional’ perceptual experience. His rationale is that in contemporary performance the spectator cannot draw upon prior experience and expectations and is therefore thrust into sensually arousing instinctual responses. Whilst we can quibble with this division and its underlying assumptions and definitions, the range of examples offers a mouth-watering collection of sensually stimulating work: Franko B, Karen Finley, Marina Abramovic, IOU, Forced Entertainment. The examples further extend to dance, music, visual art, film and even theme-park events. The corporeal content in the writing would have been enhanced through pictorial material, not only to engage the reader more sensorially, but also to illustrate some of the complex neurological and physiological detail, particularly in the dense introduction. Chapter 2 then brings sight into focus through an illuminating discussion of how light and movement affect perception. Physical and sexual interactions are explored in the third chapter, on touch, which concludes with a discussion of an interactive media event in which the artist ‘submits himself to the whims of the attendants’ through the operation of a computer mouse. This raises a series of ethical questions regarding the implications of ‘participation’ in an event of this kind: are we ‘voyeurs or sadists’? How does technology mediate our responses?
The book is peppered with fascinating facts: olfactory memory stays with us the longest, we learn in the chapter entitled ‘Noses, Tongues and Other Surprising Possibilities’. The concept of ‘phonetic empathy’ and the relations between sound, memory and emotion in performance provide fascinating insights in the penultimate chapter, ‘Aural Landscapes’, while the final chapter considers the implications of physiological and neurological knowledge for our conceptions of scenic space, spectatorship, documentation and the role and function of performance. The eclectic range of examples leaves readers hungry for what is left off the menu. The relatively brief section on food and performance contains no references to the culinary theatres of Judy Chicago, Bobby Baker or Suzanne Lacy. A further omission is the theatre of De La Guarda, whose immersive performances (a term which is curiously absent from this account) would have served Di Benedetto's thesis well. Overall, the writing is designed to provoke debate (as well as the senses) not least because of the way science is used to conceptualize theatre. His discussion may touch some nerves, but this is an important and timely contribution to the emerging field of cognitive studies and performance.
