ABSTRACT
PERFORMATIVITY The path of evolution produced by a cultural entity — an object, a building, a company or a career immersed in its context — produces a distinct lineage4 as a result of its propagation. Each lineage exists indefinitely through time, and may be selected in terms of its performance. Although different performance paradigms are separate, they inevitably emanate and influence each other. This selection always constitutes an emergent and decentralized process in which many actors are interrelated through complex feedback loops. This process requires cognition, is innovative, and leads to a restless proliferation of new effects. This transmission across lineages is, as Stephen J. Gould writes, “the major source of cultural change.”5
