New forms of art, culture and theory have recently emerged through engagements with the realities of the social world and everyday life, which are not primarily about representation but rather about participation and narration. These new forms are based on viewer responses and engagement, thus performatively creating open-ended situations rather than autonomous works with closure. Performative theory, drawing mostly on studies of speech acts, proves adequate to describe and analyse these new forms of art and culture and their engagement with the real. This book scrutinises a range of contemporary works that experiment with viewer participation and processuality within art and culture, as well as it takes issue with theories of performativity and performance. 'Performative Realism' contains contributions from leading Danish scholars working within a broad range of academic fields such as Media Studies, Art History, Theatre Studies and Cultural Studies. The issues addressed covers Scandinavian as well as international installation art, performance art, theatre, photography, movies, literature and role-playing.