Applying a cancer model to the generation of writing for performance: Finding (creative) life in death

Abstract

This paper outlines the creative experiment that led to the composition of Self Portrait / In Cross-Sections / With Bird, writing designed for theatrical performance. The paper sets this experiment within a critical framework that theorises a textual system. The textual system utilises the organismic dynamics of systems biology to delineate the dwelling within and shaping of imaginative spaces that results from the act of writing. Using practice-based research, the experiment seeks to investigate how biological processes might be used to generate innovations in dramatic form by analysing the implementation of one distinct biological process – the generation and proliferation of cancer. Specifically, by applying a model of composition derived from cancer biology to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, it is theorised that a dramaturgy essentially cancerous in nature might emerge. A cancerous mode of composition is realised through the transcription or copying of a foundational Hamlet text, a process which models DNA replication and which allows for a proliferation of mutation errors. The rapid and unchecked accumulation of transcription errors simulates the destructive energy of cancer, embodying the tension between chaos and order by which cancer is characterised. What emerges from the experiment are insights into the relationship between (creative) life and death within a cancerous mode of creative composition. By extrapolating from cancer to biological processes more broadly, the paper argues that a biological mode of composition – one which is alert to the inherent energy of the textual system – can enhance our understanding of the mutual emergence of character, author and text.