Presentation

Major Quote

“Try again, fail again, fail better.” – Samuel Beckett

Beckett was a lead practioner with the theatre style Theatre of the Absurd, which looks to challenge the norms and is a great example of non-representational theory, as it always encourages to look beyond what the actual content of the performance is and for the audience to look deeper into what is in fact not represented.

One of Beckett’s most known works is “Waiting for Godot”, which is extremely known for Godot to be a metaphor for God and is also an example of the theory.

 

Connection to the Reading

“No wonder then, as Dewsbury puts it, [non-representational theory] is destined to fail it. Yet, as he incites us to do following Beckett’s famous dictum, in the end out job as non-representationalists is to simply fail better.” (Vannini, 2015)

This encourages us to be wrong, to explore why we are wrong, and to not be afraid of getting it wrong. We are always encouraged as creators to not let the fear of getting something wrong stop us from creating. When creating, we technically can’t get it wrong, as it is our own content.

 

What Does it Mean to Me?

Non-representation theory describes taking an element of something and twisting it and contorting it to create something that is a shadow of the original, but that isn’t quite there. (Lautier, 2020)

It’s tough to try to explain non-representational theory, since it’s literal definition is simply something that isn’t there and what is not immediately recognisable. I think in some way it still needs to have elements of the original media, but it needs to be twisted in some way just so it’s not something you would think of immediately. It’s about thinking outside of the box, but still keeping the box in sight. To write non-representational theory, I think it needs to be vague enough to be interpreted in different ways and to be seen as something that it’s not. A lot of poetry does this well, but I’d like to see how that can be effectively conveyed in long form writing.

The Unfortunates

The Unfortunates by B.S Johnson (Johnson, 1969) is an example of using non-representational theory in writing. The first and last sections of the story are set, but the remaining 25 passages of the story can be read in any order. This means there are a total of 15.5 septillion possible orders this book can be read in. (Hooper, 2014) This is an example of writing with non-representational theory, rather than writing to be interpreted by non-representational theory.

Works Cited

Hooper, M., 2014. Why BS Johnson suits the digital age. The Guardian.

Johnson, B., 1969. The Unfortunates. s.l.:s.n.

Lautier, M., 2020. Non-representational Theory. [Online]
Available at: http://www.mediafactory.org.au/moniquelautier/2020/08/04/non-representational-theory/

Vannini, P., 2015. Non-Representational Research Methodologies: An Introduction. In: s.l.:Taylor & Francis Group.