A bit of a late entry, but a couple notes. First, and I may be playing a bit fast and loose with the word "provocation" here, but I wouldn't think it controversial to suggest that few readily embrace the possibility of being provoked – present company most assuredly included. Take the phrase "I tend to avoid that kind of thing." Well, what I am tending to do here is to avoid the possibility of being provoked. If I have some inkling as to what's coming, and I pursue it anyway, then the "provocation" is to be had on largely agreeable terms; hardly a provocation. Applied to noise/pe, perhaps the only real provocateurs would be organizers who, say, deliberately book performers like Hijokaidan at jazz festivals; or perhaps the mischievous friend who knowingly invites another whose sense of taste may stand to be fouled by paying witness to such performers in action.
Nevertheless, I think a performance (or re-presentation) of provocation can be had if there stands a chance that something or someone is going to be damaged; emotionally, physically, financially, whatever. Especially in a "community" where practically everyone knows everyone else. An extreme example might be where the performer, of whom I may have considerable respect, suddenly offs and kills himself. In such an instance I wouldn't know whether to laugh, cry, cheer, or stroke my chin*. I am provoked because I don't have any internalized script on how to react.
Note that in my view damage need not actually transpire; but rather, at some instance, the seeming possibility that it might. A more probable example might be back in the late 90's when I caught Death Squad in Toronto...
It's a small venue and things are already a bit surreal after the owner, at the behest of paying bar patrons upstairs, comes down and castrates Knurl by turning him down in mid-set... I'm already bit provoked you could say... So here's MK9, three feet away, hacking away at his forearm with a straight razor. I want to cheer but I'm not sure I should. In fact, it pops into my somewhat adled brain, I barely know this guy. Who knows what he's capable of? And at that moment, of course, the performance, and the provocation, could be said to succeed. Later audience reaction furthers the point. Knurl's girl shivers and confides, "I never could stand self-mutilation." I remain silent; I've indulged in something of the same style of "performance" myself – if not in a noise/pe setting. Her unsettlement actually unsettles me more; because it makes me look back on my own indulgences a little more critically. At the end of the evening, the provocation is more or less complete. Well done.
* the Japanese word for "penis"
[edited before my punctuation provokes reply from the grammar nazi]
