PIOTR WOYCICKI

Mathematical Aesthetic as a Strategy for Performance: A Vector Analysis of Samuel Becketts Quad
Stand up. Turn 90 left from your desk and walk 6 paces to B. Turn 135 to your left and walk 8 paces to D. Turn 135 to your left and walk 6 paces to A. Turn 135 to your left and walk 8 paces to C. Turn 135 to your left and walk 6 paces to D. Turn 135 to your left and walk 8 paces to B. Turn 135 to your left and walk 6 paces to C. Turn 135 to your left and walk 8 paces to A. Sit down. The above sequence of instructions from Becketts Quad marks a culmination of an aesthetic trend in Becketts pieces, an increasing focus on the use of mathematical patterns as a formal basis for structuring performance. In his detailed analysis of Samuel Becketts directorial notebooks S. E. Gontarski argues for this trend:

Journal of Beckett Studies 21.2 (2012): 135156 Edinburgh University Press DOI: 10.3366/jobs.2012.0043 The editors, Journal of Beckett Studies www.eupjournals.com/jobs

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Revision is often toward a patterned disconnection, as motifs are organised not by causality but by some form of recurrence and (near) symmetry. This process often entails the conscious destruction of logical relations, the abandonment of linear argument, and the substitution for a more abstract pattern of numbers, music and so forth, to shape a work. (1985, 4) What particularly interests me is how this trend towards the numerical, the patterned, towards a celebration of articial structures within Becketts plays becomes a major concept for performance in his later works and in particular Quad (Dearlove, 1982, 191). Arguably, in his earlier plays the use of geometrical patterns, repetitions and other mathematical frameworks can be perceived as techniques used for undermining and reformulating the traditional, dramatic notions of character representation, in an attempt to free theatre from these sense-making frames. Examples of this could be the peculiar geometric blocking of Endgame or the symmetric, permutating narrative structures of Come and Go. However in his later plays, articial structures become more of a subject matter in their own right, becoming a dominant aesthetic which inuences all aspects of theatricality and becomes more of a foreground of theatrical experience. Historically mathematics has been the basis for developing compositional tools and methodologies across a wide range of art forms. Examples could be found in classical painting, music and architecture but also in more contemporary forms such as structural poetics, choreography, musical notation, lm, and virtual theatre. For instance in the classical era, the golden-section rule and geometric gures were often used as aesthetic guidelines to structure images and musical elements. The Fibonacci Sequence was used as a tool to establish proportions both within painting and architecture, famously implemented by Michaelangelo in many of his architectural works. Leonardo da Vinci was famous for introducing perspective rules and mathematical proportionality to painting. In some sense mathematical structures have been like a hidden code within the Western cultural heritage, which reinforced a continuous proliferation of certain formal qualities. They served as a formal spine, an inner structure that supported different elements of an artwork in question. In that sense these

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compositional rules were hidden patterns, beneath the surface of emanation of a work of art. They comprised relations and dynamics designed to ensure a sense of beauty, balance, hierarchy and harmony which was to be apprehended on a more intuitive, qualitative level by the beholder. During the classical period the implicit mathematical structures were never to become the subject matter of a work of art, nor were they were supposed to be exposed, unmasked or foregrounded on top of the structural hierarchy of a work of art. In the modernist age, however, there was a more explicit pronunciation of these compositional rules and the mathematical structures comprising them. This is very visible in architecture for instance, where the logic of the buildings began to accentuate rigid geometric forms, as in the works of Mies Van Der Rohe or Le Corbusier. Also in music, in the work of Arnold Schnberg for instance, who applied set theory as a system for dening and categorising harmonic relations; or in painting, where Piet Mondrian made geometrical proportions the subject matter of his abstract paintings. In the theatre, Beckett progressively introduced mathematical notions to structure performance. In his later work the representational aspirations are reduced and this makes the structural principles underlying performance more visible. This movement towards structural enunciation developed into a strategy that arguably became progressively dominant within his plays. I would like to analyse structural patterns that constitute Becketts mathematical strategies for performance from the perspective of mathematics and I will refer to them as the mathematical aesthetic. This aesthetic can be broadly dened as an underlying set of principles, or an image often manifested by an outward appearance or style of performance, where mathematics provides an especially succinct denition of the representational and structural impulse. This is not to say that mathematics was essentially at the heart of Becketts thinking behind aesthetic choices and dramaturgical strategies, even though it may be difcult to avoid that impression with plays such as Quad. Furthermore Becketts experimentation with this mathematical aesthetic is not necessarily in line with a pursuit of an aesthetic ideal or the transcendental real. Despite its broad application in todays society mathematics remains an abstract body of

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knowledge that is often articially imposed on reality in order to yield models of representation/explanation and consequently control. In this article I shall analyse the mathematical aesthetic in Becketts Quad in terms of the play script and the possibilities it offers for performance. In the rst instance I will explore the relationship between the mathematical choreography of Quad and its implementation in performance in terms of the signicance that it offers for the interpretation of the piece. I will argue that the use of the mathematical aesthetic in Quad works towards opening up a multiplicity of interpretations and hence I will elaborate how it can be seen as negotiating various interpretations that have been suggested in the past. In the second instance I will offer a different approach to interpreting Quad. I will use Jean Baudrillards theory of simulation and treat Quad as a work of conceptual art to show how the mathematical aesthetic can be seen as a structural concept which effaces the author. I will contend that by developing this aesthetic Beckett heralded the emergence of performance simulation which nds an increasing application in contemporary virtual performance and CGI. I will demonstrate this by showing how the mathematical aesthetic of Quad can be turned into a computer program capable of generating the script of the play ad innitum.

Quad
Quad is a play built around the tension between an extremely formal abstract choreographic system and its potential for implementation as an actual live performance. As Steven Connor puts it, the play exhibits the opposition between the living, the embodied, the concrete on the one hand, and the abstract, the symbolic and the tangible on the other (1988, 140). The play consists of four players moving within an area of a square whose sides are six paces long, with each player having a specically designated path. Each of the players in essence performs the same pattern simply starting at different points in the square at different times. This scheme can be likened to a baroque piece of music where each instrument performs a complementary voice that is in a

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different register to the other voices and is phased in time. Each of the players performs a journey that can be mathematically dened through a series of vectors.

Diagram 1 (Beckett, 1986, 451). Path ways for the movements of the four players, within the square in Quad.

The vector Paths (see Diagram 1) are as follows: Course 1: AC, CB, BA, AD, DB, BC, CD, DA Course 2: BA, AD, DB, BC, CD, DA, AC, CB Course 3: CD, DA, AC, CB, BA, AD, DB, BC Course 4: DB, BC, CD, DA, AC, CB, BA, AD The conceptual players seem to act as within a computer program, a machine that has created denite paths for their bodies. If we were to analyse this play from a dramatic perspective, or in terms of what it potentially represents, then we are faced with an almost absurd situation since the play script offers little material for such an enquiry. From a dramatic perspective there is very little to read a subject/character from not to mention a plot or narrative. Most of the dramatic notions of theatrical representation have been reduced to a minimum and what is left is an almost purely objective blueprint of movement that dictates the whole performance. Dimensions such as the use of spoken language, props and set are made substantially minimal or completely

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abandoned. All that remains is a dark void, a square and four hooded human bodies. A clear distinction must be made between Becketts aesthetic strategy and the way an audience may read and interpret it. I will problematise this distinction further on. For now I would like to hone in on the specicity of the mathematical aesthetic as a creative tactic in Quad. In order to illuminate the mathematical concepts, which are a blueprint for structuring the performance of this play and seem to be at the heart of its substance, we must rst analyse the mathematical aesthetic in detail. The script for the play stipulates simply a series of vector movements for each player to perform, within the square. On closer analysis, it becomes clear that the whole sequence for the play consists of a repetition of two vector movements, one along a side of the square and the other one across the diagonal. These two vectors form a core path for each player. Once the path is completed, it is turned 90 clockwise and repeated again. This consecutive repetition and re-mapping of the two vectors by a rotation of 90 forms the script for the play. In mathematical terms this could be described as a multiplicity of two vectors which are being re-mapped or multiplied by a rotational matrix of 90 clockwise. Diagrams 2 to 6 explain the vector breakdown of movements in Quad. This core trajectory could be dened as the one of a multiplicity and looking at it from a purely theoretical structural perspective it is a mathematical, ideal multiplicity.1 The one shape, being that of the two vectors, is being endlessly multiplied within the same space. The endless quality is only there, if we accept that the plays rudimentary symmetrical structure could be repeated innitely. The reason why I want to make this clear is that this strict mathematical form has crucial implications for any performance of the play and its witnessing by the audience. This mathematical concept for performance, where all paths, steps and actions of the performers have been ascribed through a mathematical structure, naturally brings questions about the potential of its realisation in performance. Also intriguing are the reasons for subjecting live performance to this nite mathematically controlled choreography. The focus of the performance of Quad can be seen as a tension between two poles, the structural and the performative, a tension which is arguably multifaceted. If we

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The first two movement vectors, which then are rotated 90 anti-clockwise to produce the characters paths.

The second two vectors

The third two vectors

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The fourth two vectors

When put together they form a full character path for Quad
Diagrams 2 to 6. Vector breakdown of movements in Quad.

were to compare the experience of reading or apprehending this concept with the spectating of its performance, then it can be said that the live performance, through the sheer detail and nuanced quality of a performers presence, has the potential to exceed or be in excess of the minimalist conceptual structure from which it derives. Arguably this excess results from the fact that the material stage body is never ideally performing the paths set out by the mathematical aesthetic; the live performance potentially falls short of realising the concept, but also brings with it a

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plethora of nuances that potentially come into tension with the purely geometric choreography. These nuanced details may range from subtle expressions of individual characteristics of performers, such as differences in walking pace, posture, minimal gestures, deliberately pronounced or not, to effects caused by exhaustion such as occasional slippages, uneven walking rhythm etc. As I will argue, it seems as if Beckett is setting up a theatrical experiment, where a potential tension will develop: a tension between an imaginary aspiration towards a formal, aesthetic ideal and its failure of realisation in live performance. In Quad I and Quad II, directed by Beckett for television in 1982, actors performing the script internalise the inherent patterns within it. When the performance starts, before the players enter, the audience is faced with an empty void. Once the players enter and start to move they start to map out all the vector patterns through their movements. They plot the coordinates of the square and their regimented paths. For the players the script or the structure pre-exists the performance. For a witnessing audience, however, the mathematical structures and rules governing performance are not clear from the start. The inscription of geometric patterns and gures becomes apprehensible as they unfold from repetitions during the performance. Steve Connor remarks that the shape of the square becomes impermanent and has to be inscribed and anxiously re-inscribed by the pacing gures (1988, 144). Sooner or later it becomes apparent for the spectator that there is a set of rules governing and dictating the players paths. Each player has one phrase of movement which, as I have previously explained, could be seen as being made up of two vectors and a rotational matrix. As far as a potential for character construction is concerned, this is what textually constitutes each players identity. This rigid repetition may evoke the rejection of plot and character history. The repetitive movements of the players who have no memory, no dened past to develop from, assume the abstract structure inherent in their movement. There is no introduction or end to their journeys, only a constant repetition of a mathematical form. The players seem to follow the idea of what could be dened as a liminal journey, that Deleuze and Guattari dened as proceeding from the middle, through the middle, coming and going rather than starting and nishing (1988, 25). If one tried to identify a plot, a progressive linear series of consequential events, then the circular

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form of repetition would create a resistance. This is different than in a play like Footfalls, an earlier play by Beckett heavily structured around mathematical permutations, where the repetition is sequential and teasingly offers the possibility of a plot. In this context Quad becomes more of a formal exercise. A process of attempting to achieve an abstract mathematical aesthetic in performance. Nonetheless it soon becomes apparent that this pure formalism is unachievable in performance since the live bodies resist the imposition of such rigid formal structures. And indeed Quad seems to explore what becomes a failure of the human performer to embody them. Sidney Hoffman, who directed the BBC2 version of Quad I and II combined, said that Quad I offers a nightmarish world for the actor, since there is almost no room for improvisation (1992, 41). Yet, it is the constant circular repetition of these formal structures which may prove annoying and tiresome to watch that makes the audience seek out the detail, where the slightest movement or gesture starts to gain a new proportion of meaning. Sidney Homan comments on a rehearsal process for the television version of Quad he directed, saying that despite the rigid structure slight traces of character inevitably appear. This is inevitable since each actor has his/her own personality and certain subtle habits which become more apparent as the formal structure is being repeated. As an audience we notice those personal touches in the form of a characteristic walk, a peculiar way of approaching the corner, the very posture of the body, an expression on a face otherwise staring almost blindly ahead and different moods . . . when only one player was present, or when all four were together (Hoffman, 1992, 29). It is out of these unprepossessing raw materials that Beckett generates a dramaturgy of which the smallest detail may possess signicance. Apart from occasional performance excess there is a far more obvious moment in the play which illustrates the engendered escape in the structure of the trace. That is the moment where the directions given in the original script for Quad I fail to prevent players clashing at the centre of the square. The hot spot is the centre where there is a possibility of collision between the players. The centre E, also called the danger zone by Beckett, is a problematic situation where the strict rules of the trace have to be compromised. The problem at the centre of the stage as Beckett

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Diagram 7 (Beckett, 1986, 453). Becketts solution to the problem resulting at the center E.

suggests in his notes could be exploited. The problem can be seen as a failure of the performers bodies to integrate themselves into the pure mathematical system. Hence, the problem which can occur in the danger zone of the play can also be seen as a manifestation of the subjective performance of the players. Beckett thus offers a plan B (see Diagram 7), which is precisely the manipulation of the players within the vector rules of their movement to solve the problem. Hans Hans Hiebel argues that an audience that anticipates the subjective is astonished by the repetition of the jerky turn, the repeated and always recurring identical frightened reaction of the performers in front of the terrifying centre of the quadrangle: Ethe danger zone. The danger zoneAbgrund (Abyss). (1993, 339) To further explore what is at stake between the mathematical text and the performance Ciane Fernandess insights into the nature of movement repetition in Pina Bauschs theatre may be illuminating here. She points to the fact that performance creates a gap between the text or the interpretation and what is materially in front of us. She argues that the audience are faced with a crucial bodily function intensied by mechanisation. Repetition

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initially dismantles dance as spontaneous expression, positing it as part of the symbolic. It then allows a temporary opening of the symbolic order into the real (Fernandes, 2001). This reveals motor manifestations and experience. In the case of Quad, the symbolic is the mathematical structure. As we have seen, the repetition of movements makes the audience spot the geometric pattern. However further down the process they may begin to notice the more subjective gestures of the players. The centre becomes a place of friction, where the mathematical system collapses and has to be reinstated again. Beckett said that the centre: marks the spot or moment of recognition of the void, the nothingness which seems to penetrate through the black hole in the centre. Death, nothingness, misery, futility, danger are visible for a second, but are instantly forgotten or repressed. (Quoted in Hiebel, 1993, 339) Hence, the temporary recognition of the void can also be seen as a manifestation of a deeply repressed conscience. Sidney Homan played with this idea in his production by having the last player walk into the centre and disappear. The lighting was adjusted in such a way that the centre was a dark square. Even though the play has no language, and its text seems to be geometry, it is not incapable of suggesting representations. Sidney Hoffman suggests: If we are an active audience in Becketts work, no matter what medium he chooses, here in the mimes we are even more so. The actions are devastatingly physical, [. . . ] and yet we cannot resist the self-imposed drive toward symbolism and meaning. (Quoted in Connor, 1988, 165) For instance Connor argues in Quad that the Anticlockwise and clockwise are the directions moved by the inhabitants of the Inferno and Purgatory respectively in Dantes Divine Comedy, to signify movement away and towards God, away from and towards freedom (1988, 145). One can also read the play through Michel Foucaults theory of the panopticon. The players act as within a prison but there are no walls, the barriers are within the players, the structure of surveillance has been internalised. The square

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only exists through performance; it is thus the performative map. Foucaults claim that we are . . . in the panoptic machine can relate directly to the audience who watches the performance on a TV screen, a private theatre and given the notions of reality TV shows also a system of surveillance (1979, 217). The Foucauldian take on the play invites a political reading, along the lines of an Orwellian state, where all is controlled by an external all present power. Even though there is little possibility of traditional character interaction, the mathematical aesthetic does offer a possibility for character relations. Michael Guest states that: Becketts vision of human existence conned in a perpetual moment, no more living than not, has a philosophical afnity with Foucaults project of writing a history of the present (1996). The rejection of history calls for a creation of history in the present or, in other words a form of community. Despite these multiple possibilities of interpretation, however, the abstractness of Quad and its sheer formality imply that almost any meaning within could be attributed to it. Many critics like Connor see this play as endlessly irresolvable, since one cannot imagine even some general overall direction for the players (Connor, 1988, 145). Thus I would like to suggest a different way of looking at Quad by looking at the interinvolvement of its mathematical aesthetic and the performance text, not in terms of what it represents, but rather by treating Quad as a conceptual work of art which dees performativity. In that sense I would like to contend that Quad is a beginning of a new era of theatricality. In the following part of my argument I will therefore extend the concepts and issues suggested by Becketts work to point out some of the cultural, ethical and political issues with the progressive systematisation and simulation of performance in contemporary art and mainstream entertainment.

Beyond Quad: The Politics of The Mathematical

As I have argued, despite the heavily mathematised blueprint for performance, the very fact that Quad is performed by live actors allows for a wealth of interpretations beyond its structural core. Much like the multiplying vectors that constitute its text, it could

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be said that Quad stimulates a multiplicity of interpretations and potential instances of representation. But Quad can also be seen as a purely conceptual structure independent of live performance. In that context Quad could be seen as an extreme experiment to efface the live and the dramatic notion of the human and consequently herald the removal of liveness from performance. I would like to take a step further and claim that Quad can also be seen as effacing the author. What is interesting about the concept and the text of Quad is that it can be easily simulated and generated by a computer program. Once set in motion it becomes a sort of perpetuum mobile. I have written a computer program which not only enacts the key structure of Quad I and II but is essentially capable of generating the set of instructions required for its performance. (A version of the program can be downloaded from www.wix. com/pwoycicki/Quad.) The program visualises and plots the path of a player in Quad. The program contains the coordinates of the two vectors which comprise the path of a player. Then it has two procedures. One procedure transforms the initial vector blueprint for a players movement by rotating it clockwise, very much as described in the above Quad analysis. The second procedure animates a square through six paces according to the vector coordinates. As a result the avatar square is moved through the pathways of Quad. The coordinates of the two vectors are stored in variables. Once they are multiplied and transgured by the matrix, the new set of coordinates replaces the old ones and they are stored again in the same variables. As a result, the program keeps no record of its past trajectory and it generates its future one as it goes along. This whole procedure is looped until the user hits Esc and since no memory is accumulated as the coordinates are constantly being recycled, in theory, the program could run forever. In essence this program can effectively generate the whole of the play simply based on the two vectors and a matrix. The play script is not necessary for it to plot all the pathways for the four players, although one could also program it to write the script by making it write out all the vectors in sequence. So what else can transforming Quad into a program like this tell us about the nature of this mysterious piece by Beckett? The main signicance of it is that it shows that Quad could be interpreted as a conceptually minimalist piece based on a mathematical,

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computable aesthetic. Once the core of the concept is set in motion, the core being the two vectors and a rotational matrix, Quad conceptually becomes a simulation. Thus it can be argued that by employing a mathematical aesthetic in such extensive ways Beckett was exploring the potential of performance simulation. This creates an interesting perceptual tension. On the one hand Quad offers the potential for multiple readings when one considers the abstractness and metaphorical nature of the piece. On the other hand the notion of a simulation becomes a strategy of the effacement and decantation of a human subject. The potential clash of these two perspectives through live performance, and the perceptual ux between the creation of a human subject through performance and the creation of an abstract mathematical object which choreographs it, situates Becketts later work in relation to a society that was becoming progressively mathematised and technological. To explore what is at stake in this dynamic further, Jean Baudrillards theory of the third order of simulacra can be helpful here as it gives insight into what happens to the sign in a society where sign production progresses towards simulation. Baudrillard came up with three orders of the simulacra which, according to him, dene the way signs were and are produced since the classical period up to today. The rst order is that of the counterfeit, the dominant schema of the classical period where the signs are produced in relation to an original. The second order is that of production, which dominates in the industrial era, where the sign production is derived from the production process, technics. The third order is that of simulation where the signs are governed by a mathematical code (Baudrillard, 1993, 50). Baudrillard states that we have already seen the signs of the rst simulacra, with their complexity and wealth of illusion, changing into crude, dull, repetitive, functional and efcient signs. These orders are historicised and periodised to an extent. Baudrillard attributes the domain of the rst order to the classical age, the second to the industrial and the third to post-modernity. Despite historical distinctions an argument is also put forward that these orders can coalesce and are not specically tied to their respective periods. If we go by this model one can draw a certain parallel of how sign production operates in Becketts theatrical works. In

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his earlier plays there still seems to be a wealth of mimetic devices and at times the audiences are lured into illusion and invited to create, focalise, and indulge in these representations, while in the later plays those traditional dramatic devices become increasingly replaced by mechanical or mathematical repetitions, which impose themselves on an increasing number of aspects that make up the theatrical event. The dramatic subject is systematically effaced but not entirely. In that sense one could plot Becketts use of the theatrical sign against Baudrillards theory and nd correspondence: ranging from the counterfeit and illusion of the earlier dramas such as Waiting for Godot (rst order), through the more repetitive, mechanic plays such as Come and Go (second order) and up to Quad which as I have argued borders on the notion of a simulation of a play (third order). Baudrillards thoughts on the third order of simulacra seem to be a tting description of what is at stake in the mathematical aesthetic of Quad. Baudrillard essentially sees the third stage of the simulacra as an overtaking of all sign production by a model that no longer negotiates questions and instead provides only answers. He says that in the third order of simulacra: At this level the question of signs, of their rational destination, their real or imaginary, their repression, their deviation, the illusion they create or that which they conceal, or their parallel meanings - all of that is erased. We have already seen signs of the rst order, complex signs and rich in illusion, change, with the machines, into crude signs, dull, industrial, repetitive, echoless, operational and efcacious. [Finally] there is a still more radical mutation as regards the codes signals, which become illegible, and for which no possible interpretation can be provided, buried like programmatic matrices, [. . . ] End of the theatre of representation, the space of the conicts and silences of the sign: only the black box of the code remains. (Baudrillard, 1993, 57 8) By turning Quad into a computer program and looking at it hypothetically from a purely conceptual perspective with the live performance eliminated, the possibility of the undecidability of the theatrical sign, which for Baudrillard is an essential aspect

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of signication, is lost. In this context there is a potential afnity between the nature of sign production in the third order of simulacra and Quads mathematical aesthetic. Where the live performance could still enable a potential interpretation of such an origin, since the bodies in performance accumulate certain traits, even if those are the tiredness of the players which can bring out certain performative nuances, the computer program has no history record as such. From a conceptual perspective it keeps no record of past or future. Baudrillard claims that this lack of history, evolution and trajectory at the heart of the mathematical codes underlying sign production in the third order of simulacra, leads to essentially cellular forms of perception. He argues that [e]ven space is no longer linear or one-dimensional but cellular, indenitely generating the same signals like the lonely and repetitive habits of a stir-crazy prisoner (Baudrillard, 1993, 58). This can be again related to the concept of Quad where the players create their own space, but also their own prison. The model which is discreetly repeated in the program offers no lines of ight to use Deleuze and Guattaris terms, no possibility of deviation, mystery or escape from its generative core. What is even more interesting is that by viewing Quad through such an extreme conceptual framework not only the undecidability and mystery of the theatrical sign is effaced but so is the agency of the author or thespians involved. This is clearly emphasised by the computer program which can reproduce itself to innity by repeating the mathematical core, thus writing the concept of the play without the need for an author or performers once the vector model for its generation has been initiated. Baudrillard links this change in sign production with capitalist politics, claiming that the reduction of all signs and knowledge to a binary code will enable new means of controlling and organising society. Baudrillards argument has to be problematised here though, as he in a way envisions the death of language. After all, the three orders of simulacra co-exist and what Baudrillard proposes is a polarity, not an end state of total simulation. He proposes a movement towards a mathematised society with mathematised forms of signication, rather than a complete realisation thereof. A complete mathematisation of reality would be impossible but if it occurred it would leave no more undecidability of meaning hence

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no potential for creating signication. It would in a way be the end of science and all knowledge. The mystery of the sign is what keeps signication live. As long as language fails to dene reality, mathematics can only be a system of approximation at any given point in history, waiting to be re-inscribed into another system of approximation. Becketts work, and in a particularly abstract sense Quad, stages this failure of language. And thus if we look at it from the suggested philosophical perspective it stages the failure of a mathematised, technological society to set a denition of the human subject. Thus Quad could also be seen as addressing a contemporary political climate, by means of a theatrical manifestation of the human within a dominant mathematical framework. Considering Quad as a computer program, a simulation can also help us to understand how this play relates to the progressive mathematisation of politics and culture that was becoming evident in the 1980s and extends to this very day. Obviously Quad was intended to be performed by human performers, live or televised, since what is at stake in Quad is the tension between the human performance and the mathematised aesthetic. This perspective of simulation can also negotiate a difference between theatrical performance and simulated electronic performance. Theatrical presence has been often referred to as ephermal, eeting, metaphorical, pointing to something beyond itself, beyond its physical matter of the here and now. In the context of Baudrillards analysis the theatrical sign remains a mystery, it is unstable and indenable. By extension so is the identity and the origin of the human if one were to consider more general terms. In contrast to this, a simulated sign in a simulated performance is ultimately and completely reducible to the code which generates. There is no more mystery but an empty vacuous denition of identity through a mathematical genus. Within this context Quad could be seen as negotiating the relationship between the theatrical sign of live performance and the simulated choreographical structures imposed upon it. Quad can also be seen as a prototype of a simulated virtual performance, despite the fact that it was intended to be performed by live performers after all, and in that heralding and exemplifying a trend both in contemporary arts and mainstream arts, where

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the mathematical codes and simulations are steadily taking over and colonising live performance. For example Susan Broadhursts Blue Bloodshot Flowers (2001) where an avatar was programmed with an emotion engine, capable of simulating a wide spectrum of performative behaviours and reactions. In mainstream art computer simulations have been extensively used to generate virtual performance in lms and computer games. The animation process mainly consists of the animator key-framing avatars, or animating them by using mathematical tools to dene movement.2 At times motion capture is used to source movement into the virtual avatars. In all of the above cases we still have human input and directorial control. Even though everything is ultimately reduced to a binary code, we still get a human source which makes each character different. Peter Jacksons lm Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King used a revolutionary sequence. One of the battle sequences demanded that over 10,000 characters be animated. This posed a workload problem for the animators working to a tight production schedule. A program was designed that could take a character animation conceived by an animator and multiply it so as to generate a whole legion. However to avoid an exact replica which would seem non-naturalistic the program would use a set of matrices with which it multiplied vectors dening the movements of characters thus modulating them and changing their movements. This process would differentiate characters and give each one a personal dimension. The program would also animate ghts between different characters, differentiating every ght, randomly deciding on the outcome of a ght based on an overall statistic given by the programmer. In other words it was a battle simulator which had a certain degree of autonomy. In a way the program generated new material and thus could be viewed as an author-director of some of the things we see on the screen. My program of Quad is a more primitive version since it does not create an illusion of difference; however, the basics are similar. It has a set of initial instructions, vectors which work like Baudrillards model which it then multiplies to create a performance. A lot of contemporary culture exemplies a progressive mathematisation of performance, which is essentially becoming generated by computer simulations. The human being as an origin

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and generator of performance is being replaced by mathematical models. In that sense contemporary culture can be said to carry aspects of a post-human condition. Becketts Quad is not so much an exemplication of this in the way that the above examples of lms and computer programs are, but it can be seen as an attempt to articulate the human in performance within a progressively mathematised culture.

Advocating The Live

In the light of this cultural shift, we could reect upon Becketts later drama as advocating the live, giving his audience a lesson in measure. Thus does Becketts advocating of live presence, make him the last humanist? Or as Martin Esslin put it, does he show us the courage to face the ultimate void [and] produces a catharsis and intimation of the sublime, hence after all, something that lifts us above the void (1993, 20)? So far, and partially through recourse to Baudrillard, I have implied that the eminence of mathematical structures in our contemporary culture and age is something negative and soulless, essentially inhuman and set in opposition to the live posing a threat of its effacement. It is also true that the age of post-humanism is often portrayed as a negative and progressively catastrophic time, leading to the creation of an austere technological civilisation with which our engagement will become severely compromised in all aspects of life. But this is only one side of the argument which assumes a stance of pessimism. In many ways such an approach is tting to the evaluation of the interinvolvement of live performance and the mathematical aesthetic in Quad, since Becketts dramatic world is often perceived as absurdly pessimistic and cynical. However the implementation of mathematics can be perceived here in a more positive sense. The pursuit of mathematical ontology and idealism in art reects the oldest human aspiration, the aspiration towards ideal objectivity and by extension a representation of the human in the light of this ideal. In a classical sense: beauty. Alain Badiou advocates the beauty of mathematics by quoting a short poem by lvaro De Campos, one of the heteronyms used by the Portuguese poet

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Fernando Pessoa: Newtons binomial is as beautiful as the Venus de Milo. The truth is few people notice it (quoted in Badiou, 2004, 20). In this sense the application of the mathematical aesthetic in Quad, with its strict, yet elegant pattern can be perceived as mesmerising and simply beautiful, like a musical prelude or an unfolding architectural rosette. Thus the sublime emerges out of the anticipation of the formal mathematical pattern that never quite comes about in performance. The key concept here again is failure, the inevitable failure of living up to the ideal. A polish conductor, Jerzy Maksymiuk, known for his strict and structural yet somewhat extravagant approach to music, once said that art is born out of error. Thus the lesson taught by Beckett lies in failure. This perhaps should not be seen as a dark irony but as part of the process of engaging with structures that we see as dominating our reality. The transgression of the mathematical model by the human performer sets in motion the uidity of the subject-object relation. Both the formal mathematical patterns and the unexpected qualities and details of live performance become negotiated in Quad. Such is the image in Quad: four bodies resonating with a mathematical structure and a mathematical structure resonating through them. And in this context Quad can be seen as a play which demarcates a space for the failure of the live within the structures of the mathematical, hence negotiating this relationship between live performance and the mathematical aesthetic, not as one of opposition and irreducibility, but one of interinvolvement.

NOTES
1. A pattern or in this case a sequence of movements denoted by vectors, which multiplies (repeats itself through a constant rotational transformation) ad innitum. 2. Key framing is when an animator sets up a series of positions, tableaux, on a timeline that an avatar will assume during the course of an animation. The computer program calculates all the positions in between so that a uidity of 30 frames per second is achieved.

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JOURNAL OF BECKETT STUDIES

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