This collection addresses issues of performativity and the practices of representation, both historically at the interfaces of theatre practitioners and sexual practices, and intermedially at the intersection of performance and the constructed liveness of mediatized events. The formula of the performative as a ‘doing’ by a thing done, as phrased by Elin Diamond, neatly conveys the ‘mediation’ of the events which are extra-performative and locates performance in a particular tense, thus heightening the tension between the simulation of an act and its enaction.