ABSTRACT
Stunts enabled the multiplying logic of circulating capital to be applied to identities, thereby revealing their precarious and contingent nature. At the same time, however, stunts threatened that multiplying logic with an underlying limit, by which body, life and person were unavoidably connected—and mortal. Stunts of the late nineteenth century troubled liveness in a manner that both accords with Philip Auslander’s theorisation of liveness and suggests some interventions in how liveness can be determined and understood in this historical context. Dangerous stunts gained dramatic and affective impact in their conjoint spectacularisation of liveness and aliveness. Stunts also raise questions that demand a reconsideration of how liveness is determined. The chapter argues that stunts in the late nineteenth century were peculiarly invested in performing circulation. Stunts multiplied and stratified identities, with a view to increasing circulation and testing out emerging forms of valorisation and work.
