Abstract
Being seen is an essential phenomenon of performance. This chapter explores this preliminary intuition. First section, “Phenomenology as a Method”, explains phenomenology as a method for studying being seen in performance. Second section, “Being Seen in Performance”, examines being seen through a variety of performances, while focusing on somatic practices. Third section, “On Being Seen: Performance Maps for Somatic Experiencing” makes a shift towards somatic explorations. It continues phenomenological reflections on being seen and provides simple templates for practice. At the end, consideration is given to a key question: what are the values of being seen in performance? This essay holds that being seen is an experience consciously (or sometimes tacitly) initiated in performance, and that there is intention and agency in being seen. It is worth noting, however, that Husserlian phenomenology usually delineates the intentionality of the subject, the one who sees. In this chapter, we focus more on the affective life of the one who is seen, not the seer.
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Fraleigh, S. (2019). A Phenomenology of Being Seen. In: Grant, S., McNeilly-Renaudie, J., Wagner, M. (eds) Performance Phenomenology. Performance Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98059-1_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98059-1_5
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