Representation and performativity, distributed: A response to Curran

Abstract

This contribution responds to Curran’s critique of our meta-theoretical account of performativity. Developing a distributed account of representation within the DARN framework, which systematizes the performativity literature through four interconnected modes (devices, actors, representations, and networks), we argue that representation retains a genuine dimension of ‘aboutness’, but that this aboutness is achieved and sustained through socio-technical arrangements rather than secured in advance by an individual conscious mind. Against the view that performativity must be grounded in human intentionality and reflexivity, we show that a large and growing share of performative processes operate through devices and networks where no conscious grasp is present at the point of action, as in algorithmic pricing and automated credit infrastructures. Reflexive looping is thus one mode among four, not the ground of all. Performative agency, on this account, belongs to no single agent but is distributed across the whole agencement.