The unpredictable movements of the living: revisiting the Butlerian performativity

Abstract

In the present text I am interested in problematizing the figure of being alive in relation to the idea of movement. I would like to suggest that life, what happens in the encounter with the others seems to be linked to the idea of what is not in a state of stillness, an action whose unpredictability is not only in its effects, but in the execution itself and in the movements that execution entails. In this way, a reflection seems necessary that accounts for how this unpredictability can be signaled inasmuch as there is a pretension to regulate the movement, one that can be more or less successful. In effect, certain artistic performances depend on the transgression of these regulations to operate effectively in the denaturalization of certain social rituals. In this regard, it is interesting to recover some reflections about the idea of gender performativity proposed by Judith Butler, which allow us to think of a process of denaturalization in terms of movement of something that was supposed to be in a state of stillness, the "truth of gender ", or in the transgression of the norms that govern the movements articulated by the heterosexual matrix.