Performance design er et relativt nyt fagområde, hvor kunstnerisk praksis og teori mødes i et krydsfelt af refleksioner over og nyskabende afprøvninger af performance-begrebets potentiale.

Antologiens internationale bidragydere er blandt andet kunstnere, instruktører, scenografer, arkitekter, og teoretikere, som dagligt iscenesætter og nytænker de mange potentielle dimensioner af performativitet. De skriver ud fra mange forskellige emner og fagområder, fx film, teater, dans, akustik, fotografi, musik, installationskunst, gastronomi, arkitektur og informationsteknologi.

Et fællestræk for mange af bidragene i Performance Design er ønsket om at udvide performance-begrebet, blandt andet ved at bevæge sig på tværs af forskellige discipliner og lade nye miljøer danne grundlag for forskellige performances. Publikum inddrages som medproducent og et vigtigt led i den kreative proces. På denne måde opstår fysiske og oplevelsesmæssige mulighedsrum, hvor design af både objekter, gestik, billeder, events og omgivelser resulterer i udfordrende, uforudsigelige og inspirerende betragtninger over performance-begrebet.

Som et resultat af bidragydernes eksperimenterende måde at tænke performativitet på bliver teoretiske essays præsenteret side om side med realiserede projekter og performances.

Dorita Hannah is Associate Professor of Design at Massey University’s College of Creative Arts in New Zealand.

Olav Harsløf is Professor at Roskilde University’s Department of Performance Design in Denmark.

Pressen skrev
"Esistino al mondo due avamposti, fisicamente molto distanti tra loro, di questa materia: le cattedre di Olav Harsløf in Danimarca (Università di Roskilde) e di Dorita Hannah in Nuova Zelanda (Università di Massey)."

["Der findes to forposter inden for dette område i verden og de ligger fysisk set meget langt fra hinanden: den ene er knyttet til professor Olav Harsløfs lærestol på Roskilde Universitet i Danmark og den anden til professor Dorita Hannahs lærestol på University of Massey i New Zealand."]

["Within this field there are two outposts in the world – physically situated far away from each other: The chairs of Olav Harsløf in Denmark (University of Roskilde) and of Dorita Hannah in New Zealand (University of Massey)."]
- Silvia Tarquini, Arte e Critica 57, 2009.

"The volume is beautifully illustrated with powerful and evocative photographic images of completed projects as well as examples of drawing as process. ...
This thought provoking book makes an important contribution to current discourses in the expanding field of performance and scenography. It confirms the imaginative links that are being made across disciplines as well as articulating the need for informed critical analysis of these emerging practices. It provides a valuable resource to students at all levels and to practitioners working in design and performance but it relevance extends beyond the arts into science, technology and global politics."
- Jane Collins, Blue PAGES, Vol. 2, 2009.

"[T]his is one hell of a book, throughout its 300 pages poking and prodding the general question of what exactly is being placed in the frame, in the mise-en-scène, in terms of both sight and sound, and to be viewed from exactly which vantage points? ...
This cornucopia of a book, in a collection which is richly and intelligently laid out and illustrated, generously throws questions at us, asking throughout why we are so rigidly fixed to cultural practices, professional or amateur, that are still defined by separations between this and that: art, theatre, music, film, literature, science, business, education, community, politics? ... This book helped me realise further how far we've come in the range of our thinking on this score since when one of the best questions we could provide might once have been building wood and canvas sets for amateur dramatics."
- John Downie, Illusions 41, 2009.

"Peppered with detailed photographs and intriguing sketches, this uniquely tactile book is an anthology of how the established concepts of performance studies are being applied to the investigation of designed environments. With erudite theoretical accounts augmented by visual essays, it locates the question of the performative within a wider discourse on design and encounter. ...
As a whole, the collection traces, with scholarly conviction and artistic ease, how the remit of scenography has begun to wander outside the conventional boundaries of the stage. From fine art to architecture, students and scholars alike will undoubtedly benefit from its lucid arguments, visual descriptions and the idea that the 'autonomous art object' has been surpassed by the 'dynamic principle of embodied spatio-temporal event' (p. 13).
- Rachel Hann, The Journal of Theatre Research International, Volume 35/3 - 2010.