Political Posters, Periperformativity, and Power: An Analysis of the Connections Between an Activist Movement's Image and Sound

This essay argues that we can gain a better understanding of the relationship between ACT UP’s image and sound, specifically its political posters and subsequent chants, by using Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s theory of periperformativity to examine the periperformative dimension of these chants and thus the power they lend ACT UP members during civil disobedience demonstrations. Second, it argues that the periperformative has the capacity to register historical change because it is an instance of, we-work.