Response to "What is Performance?"

In Marvin Carlson’s essay, he describes three different concepts or categories of performance: a skilled or talented professional performing for an audience, the conscious way one acts or behaves socially, and how a person or object functions in contrast to a defined set of standards. A commonality that one could draw between these various definitions of performance is that they all invite critique because, as Carlson states, “performance is always performance for someone.” A musician is rated on his/her prowess with an instrument along with the quality of the performance. Someone who makes a conscious effort to act a certain way socially may judge him or herself on, for example, the successfulness of interpersonal communication (An external party may even draw critiquing comparisons of how that person acts collectively versus privately). Furthermore, a computer may be evaluated on its circuitry, features, and ease of use or even simply on aesthetics.

Take the dog food ad above as another example of the complexity of word “performance.” The ad implies the “powerful performance” of the food, contrasting the seemingly healthy dog and the bodybuilder. One could evaluate not only the quality of the dog food, but the models pictured and the effectiveness of the ad as well.