This research project explored the intersections between the work of Samuel Beckett and Japanese Noh theatre. Both theatre practices have a special relationship with ghosts, absence, (non-)action, performativity and the relationship between subject and object. The motivation for this research project was twofold. On the one hand, the cross-pollination between Beckett and Noh stemmed from the practice of visual artist and theatre maker Kris Verdonck and the research into posthumanism and temporality by dramaturge Kristof van Baarle. On the other hand, there is a concrete reference to Noh theatre in the manuscript of Waiting for Godot, where the stage direction for Lucky's dance reads as follows: "danse (voir Noh)" (Van Hulle and Verhulst, 2018). Over the past fifty years, research has been conducted into the more factual similarities between Noh and Beckett (e.g. Takahashi, 1982 and Okamuro 2008), and to a lesser extent into the deeper dramaturgical similarities. Performing absence focused on both dramaturgical and performative aspects of Noh and Beckett in the search for artistic forms for how absence presents itself in the current state of the world. Absence is significant from technological, political and ecological perspectives. Technological developments are making objects, machines, algorithms, etc. increasingly 'lively', and the people who use them are becoming increasingly intimate and comprehensively controlled by and involved in all kinds of applications. Technology is becoming a spectre; just think of how AI chatbots mimic friendship and love, but also reinforce and capitalise on grief and delusions. Meanwhile, we can speak not only of Artificial Intelligence, but also of Artificial Presence. The doom-laden image of humans increasingly disappearing from the picture, replaced and sidelined, is becoming another step closer to reality.

Disappearance and extinction are also forms of absence from an ecological perspective. The climate catastrophe confronts us not only with a sixth mass extinction but also with our own mortality and finitude: a perspective that calls for a more humble attitude. When the issue of technology becomes increasingly intertwined with that of the Anthropocene and takes on a real horizon of extinction, this calls for new steps in artistic language. What figures emerge from the intertwining of posthumanism and the Anthropocene, from technological and ecological catastrophe? How can we still perform 'after the end'? What is there left to perform? How can we give artistic, dramaturgical, technical and performance-related form to this new state of being? A state of being in which the overlap between subject and object is so great that we might be better off speaking in terms of a different, more existential dichotomy, namely that between presence and absence. What are today's ghosts, how do they perform, how are they staged, presented, what is their timing, what are their words, their movements, materials? How can we shape the crisis of meaning caused by this situation?

In search of answers, this research project explored the intersections between Beckett and Noh from practical and performative perspectives in the form of various masterclasses on Beckett's work and a performative state of being beyond meaning. To better understand Beckett's work, we created a performance based on his short story The Lost Ones with drama students. To better understand Noh, we not only studied visual material, literature and attended performances, but also interviewed various Noh masters and specialists, which will lead to a publication. In the creations and installations of Kris Verdonck, with Kristof van Baarle as dramaturge, further research and application took place, with a lasting impact on their practice.