Theatre as an art of emergence and individuation

Theatre can be broadly construed as a cultural system for collectively modelling and experiencing life, and thus as manifesting the dynamics inherent to all evolving cultural systems. Such is the de?nition underpinning the current paper, written from a theatre scholar’s perspective, and employing as a backdrop Gilbert Simondon’s proposal that individuation constitutes a kind of theatre. Notions of ‘‘existential pluralism’’ (Etienne Souriau) and ‘‘agential intra-actions’’ (Karen Barad) are used in attempts to identify theatre as a catalyst for the renewal of cultural experience vital for sustaining projective powers of the collective imagination. Theatre architectures ranging from the physically sited to the digitally networked involve unique socio-technical craftsmanship and hodological or wayfaring skills, to allow the emergence of interhuman relations Simondon describes as ‘‘transindividual’’.