Provocation in Popular Culture

<p>What role can provocation play in the process of renewal both of individuals and of societies? <em>Provocation in Popular Culture</em> is an investigation into the practice of specific provocateurs and the wider nature of cultural provocation examining among others:</p><ul> <p> </p> <li>Banksy</li> <p> </p> <li>Sacha Baron Cohen</li> <p> </p> <li>Leo Bassi</li> <p> </p> <li>Pussy Riot</li> <p> </p> <li>Philippe Petit</li> <p> </p> <li>Archaos.</li> </ul><p>Drawing on Bim Mason’s own twenty-five year career as performer teacher and creative director this book explores the power negotiations involved in the relationship between provocateur and provoked and the implications of maintaining a position on the ‘edge’.</p><p>Using neuroscience as a bridge it proposes a similarity between complexity theory and cultural theories of play and risk. Three inter-related analogies for the ‘edge’ on which these performers operate – the fulcrum the blade and the border – reveal the shifts between structure and fluidity and the ways in which these can combine in a single moment.</p>