CALL FOR PAPERS
Becoming Nomad: Hybrid Spaces, Liquid Architectures and Online Domains
TaPRA Performance and New Technologies Inter-conference Event 2013
on 10 April 2013* at York St John University, York, UK
A research event organised by TaPRA Performance and New Technologies Working Group in cooperation with York St John University
*A pre-conference workshop run by Mark Jeffery and Judd Morrissey will take place on 9 April 2013. Their Performance Anatomical Theatres of Mixed Realitywill be presented on 10 April.
Confirmed Keynote Speaker: Professor Maaike Bleeker
Invited Practitioners: Mark Jeffery and Judd Morrissey
Conceptions of space and time are necessary coordinates of a re-interrogation of the limits of corporeality […] because any understanding of bodies requires a spatial […] framework. (Elizabeth Grosz 2001:32)
Rosi Braidotti has established the concept of ‘nomadism’ as an analytical tool. Increasingly, in theatre and performance as in other areas of life, we embody those nomadic, ‘post-identitarian’ subjects (Braidotti 2010) in order to address the complexities of our times. This interim symposium aims to explore the ‘becoming-nomad’ (Braidotti 2011: 66) of subjects, bodies, and ideas that occurs within contemporary globalised, mediatised, augmented and distributed environments. This symposium further seeks to map out the multiple transformations that result from those phenomena in theatre and performance practice and identify fruitful elements of ‘surprise’ (Grosz 2001: 11) stemming from the intersections between the virtual and the actual in potentially different spatial contexts. Putting emphasis on instances of wandering in, encountering the ‘other’ within and encountering something other than the actual, we aim to re-negotiate the concept of becoming, belonging and being-in-mixed-media worlds.
By setting up dialogues between bodies and spaces, this interim event seeks to explore the new practices, philosophies and intensities evoked by the continuously shifting coordinates of contemporary corporealities, and to renegotiate notions and experiences of spatial embodiment in contemporary theatre and performance contexts. Those practices, we argue, raise questions about issues of responsibility, ethical considerations, and new approaches to the aesthetic and neuroaesthetic, political and phenomenological aspects of such spatial transfigurations.
We invite contributions, in the form of a paper, short performance, practical presentation, or provocation that reflect on the pivotal role of digital media in the reconfigurations of creative interactions and address some of the issues identified below:
- Nomadic Subjects
- Spaces of movement
- Fluid/‘liquid’ architecture(s)
- New coordinates of time and space
- Spaced-out performers/audiences
- Mapping bodied-spaces
- Gaps and trajectories between the ‘here’ and ‘there’ of digital intimacies
- Wearable Spaces
- Telematic/Displaced/Territorial narratives
- Performance/Theatre and Cultural Cartographies
- Political space of shifting coordinates/Shifting coordinates of political space
- Responsibility in becoming other/being elsewhere
Symposium Fee (Performance fee included)
Students/non-affiliated delegates:
£20 (TaPRA members)
£30 (non-TaPRA members)
Affiliated delegates:
£30 (TaPRA members)
£40 (non-TaPRA members)
Workshop: Flat rate of £10 (A limited number of places are available on the workshop. Please declare your interest in your proposals)
A couple of postgraduate travel bursaries will be available. Please include a statement of interest if you would like to be considered for one of these bursaries.
Expressions of interest, abstracts and proposals should be no longer than 250 words and should be emailed to Eirini Nedelkopoulou (e.nedelkopoulou@yorksj.ac.uk) and Maria Chatzichristodoulou (m.chatzi@hull.ac.uk) by Friday 25 January 2013.
*Performance and Workshop Information
Anatomical Theatres of Mixed Reality
Anatomical Theatres of Mixed Reality is a durational live performance and installation that engages histories of forensics and anatomical science, placing the crudeness of early surgery in relation to the prevailing 21st century vision of a body enhanced by data and augmented by computation. The core of the installation is an interactive operating table that generates screen-based content, transmits real-time data to performers, and distributes virtual overlays that can be viewed through mobile devices. The spatial choreography of tables enacts anatomy as both intact whole and distributed data-consuming system, as the elevated surface of the work shifts underfoot, fluctuating between references to surgery and banquet.
Inhabiting Systems: Operations in Mixed Reality
Contemporary technologies are blurring the boundaries between human bodies and computational tools, which are increasingly seen as integral extensions of our biological forms. Relatedly, our orientation within geo-physical space is being complicated by mobile computing, ubiquitous data, and technologies that merge elements of physical and virtual worlds. Workshop participants will reconsider anatomy and site within the context of extended bodies and mixed realities, experimenting with the juxtaposition of live and virtual imagery as well as the internalisation of real-time data and computational processes. Conceptualised as an operating theatre, the workshop will examine depictions of early anatomical theatre (in which surgical procedures were performed publicly in specially built amphitheatrical spaces) in conjunction with 21st century visions of the body.
The workshop can accommodate up to 24 participants, who are invited to become part of the live installation/performance on the following day.