The interactive body and sound become a visible feature of Iraqi theatre after 2003, due to the importance of body language in today’s theatrical performances. A Dream in Baghdad is a pioneering experience, the director of which relied entirely on body language, according to a calculated kinesthetic system.This theatrical performance, which lasted 50 minutes, was silent and did not adopt traditional dialogue. Thus, the director signaled his protest against what is happening in his country, making the actor’s body a loud trumpet against darkness, isolation, marginalization, and chaos.For the voices, they sometimes embodied the logic of force, chaos, and war through the sound of ambulances, the sound of missiles and planes. However, they sometimes expressed peace through calm.The decor was characterized by a chaotic state similar to the chaos in Iraq, and the lighting seemed dim.The scene was often bleak, with blood, corpses, body parts, and paramedics present. However, that chaos began to disappear so that the actors could sweep up the remains of the devastation and clearly confirm that the Iraqi people are able to ‘sweep up’ their differences and stop the bloodshed. The director and the author of the play wants to say that the dream is a dream about stability, security, and democracy in Iraq.Abdul Samad sees that the silent theatre may be more eloquent and influential on the recipient in terms of sensing the tragedy of the Iraqis by employing actors’ bodies, which speak and express all the facts.The present article is an attempt to see how the Iraqi director, Anas Abdel-Samad exploits the body and the sound within the silent theatre in A Dream in Baghdad to send a humanitarian message aimed at building anew Iraq full of love, hope and culture. This is done without uttering any words, through the medium of only the movements of body and sound.
{"title":"Iraqi Silent Theatre: The Body and Sound in Anas Abdel-Samad’s A Dream in Baghdad (2006)","authors":"Majeed Mohammed Midhin","doi":"10.16995/bst.9756","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.16995/bst.9756","url":null,"abstract":"The interactive body and sound become a visible feature of Iraqi theatre after 2003, due to the importance of body language in today’s theatrical performances. A Dream in Baghdad is a pioneering experience, the director of which relied entirely on body language, according to a calculated kinesthetic system.This theatrical performance, which lasted 50 minutes, was silent and did not adopt traditional dialogue. Thus, the director signaled his protest against what is happening in his country, making the actor’s body a loud trumpet against darkness, isolation, marginalization, and chaos.For the voices, they sometimes embodied the logic of force, chaos, and war through the sound of ambulances, the sound of missiles and planes. However, they sometimes expressed peace through calm.The decor was characterized by a chaotic state similar to the chaos in Iraq, and the lighting seemed dim.The scene was often bleak, with blood, corpses, body parts, and paramedics present. However, that chaos began to disappear so that the actors could sweep up the remains of the devastation and clearly confirm that the Iraqi people are able to ‘sweep up’ their differences and stop the bloodshed. The director and the author of the play wants to say that the dream is a dream about stability, security, and democracy in Iraq.Abdul Samad sees that the silent theatre may be more eloquent and influential on the recipient in terms of sensing the tragedy of the Iraqis by employing actors’ bodies, which speak and express all the facts.The present article is an attempt to see how the Iraqi director, Anas Abdel-Samad exploits the body and the sound within the silent theatre in A Dream in Baghdad to send a humanitarian message aimed at building anew Iraq full of love, hope and culture. This is done without uttering any words, through the medium of only the movements of body and sound.","PeriodicalId":37044,"journal":{"name":"Body, Space and Technology","volume":"220 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135727524","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this research article, I argue that Deep Flow is an embodied materiality that may be experienced by exploring performative phenomenologies, entwining two different sets of research practice: phenomenological methodologies and artistic practice. In Deep Flow the practitioner entangles phenomenological methodologies, methods and research practices performatively such as embodied dance practice, the felt senses, drawings, verbal feedback and their analyses in relation to biometric data, from an embodied heart rate monitor. By looking inwardly, the practitioner experiences embodied phenomena and reveals these experiences in artistic practices in relation to the worlding in which they find themselves. These outcomes are considered as being differing materialities, flowing and converging through relational and phenomenological practice, Deep Flow and through this they become embodied by the practitioner, where new forms of embodied materialities emerge. I argue that in my practice, this is an experiential state, Deep Flow, where all human and non-human elements of the dance practice flow and course through the practitioner as an embodied materiality.
{"title":"DEEP FLOW: an embodied materiality of dance, technology, and bodily experience","authors":"Jeannette Ginslov","doi":"10.16995/bst.8118","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.16995/bst.8118","url":null,"abstract":"In this research article, I argue that Deep Flow is an embodied materiality that may be experienced by exploring performative phenomenologies, entwining two different sets of research practice: phenomenological methodologies and artistic practice. In Deep Flow the practitioner entangles phenomenological methodologies, methods and research practices performatively such as embodied dance practice, the felt senses, drawings, verbal feedback and their analyses in relation to biometric data, from an embodied heart rate monitor. By looking inwardly, the practitioner experiences embodied phenomena and reveals these experiences in artistic practices in relation to the worlding in which they find themselves. These outcomes are considered as being differing materialities, flowing and converging through relational and phenomenological practice, Deep Flow and through this they become embodied by the practitioner, where new forms of embodied materialities emerge. I argue that in my practice, this is an experiential state, Deep Flow, where all human and non-human elements of the dance practice flow and course through the practitioner as an embodied materiality.","PeriodicalId":37044,"journal":{"name":"Body, Space and Technology","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80574719","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
無為),effortless action, is one of the crucial tacit knowledge from pre-Qin Chinesethinkers. Edward Slingerland articulates in Effortless action: wu-wei asconceptual metaphor and spiritual ideal in early China, “wu-wei, in the absence ofdoing exertion, literally means ‘in the absence of/without doing exertion,’ Itis important to realise, however, that wu-wei properly refers not to what isactually happening (or not happening) in the realm of observable action butrather to the state of mind of the actor. That is, it refers not to what is oris not being done but to the phenomenological state of the doer.” (Slingerland2003: 7)Seeminglyeffortless, wu-wei can be understood as a dynamic, un-self-conscious state ofmind of an agency that is optimally active and effective. This effortless flowaccurately resonates with what I have experienced throughout my journey in IAM (VR), created by Susanne Kennedy, Markus Selg, Rodrik Biersteker andRichard Janssen in 2021. During this experience, the vivid bewilderment of‘being here but not here’ reflects an uncanny sublimation of the body incyberspace. As my vision travels deeply inside, my physical body, “in theabsence of doing exertion”, remains situated in an enclosed cubic space in thegallery where the journey takes place. Such attentiveness of consciousnesstraveling through the virtual reality within the stillness of one’s body evokesa pertinent embodiment of Wu-Wei. Positioned itself in the stance ofcritical posthumanism, this essay asks how do we consider the physical form of the human body,assembled in reality-reality within the immersive sharing and exchangingprocess of virtual-reality? What kind of transformation that the human bodymight experience when it immerses into that otherworldly reality? I Am (VR),as an embodied performative happening of both artistic research andpractice of virtual reality, provides insightful perspective in searching forpossible answers. Taking this analysis as a departure point, this essay furtherinvestigates the possible entanglements between the ‘I’ and the ‘VirtualReality. @font-face{font-family:"Cambria Math";panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;mso-font-charset:0;mso-generic-font-family:roman;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face{font-family:"Arial Unicode MS";panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;mso-font-charset:128;mso-generic-font-family:swiss;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:-134238209 -371195905 63 0 4129279 0;}@font-face{font-family:"@Arial Unicode MS";panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;mso-font-charset:128;mso-generic-font-family:swiss;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:-134238209 -371195905 63 0 4129279 0;}@font-face{font-family:STSongti-TC-Regular;panose-1:2 1 6 0 4 1 1 1 1 1;mso-font-charset:136;mso-generic-font-family:auto;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:647 135200768 16 0 1310879 0;}@font-face{font-family:"@STSongti-TC-Regular";mso-font-charset:136;mso-generic-font-family:auto;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-fo
{"title":"I AM (VR) : Wu-wei (無為), Tenuous Self (虛我) and the Liminal Body in Virtual Reality","authors":"Yiou Penelope Peng","doi":"10.16995/bst.7975","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.16995/bst.7975","url":null,"abstract":"無為),effortless action, is one of the crucial tacit knowledge from pre-Qin Chinesethinkers. Edward Slingerland articulates in Effortless action: wu-wei asconceptual metaphor and spiritual ideal in early China, “wu-wei, in the absence ofdoing exertion, literally means ‘in the absence of/without doing exertion,’ Itis important to realise, however, that wu-wei properly refers not to what isactually happening (or not happening) in the realm of observable action butrather to the state of mind of the actor. That is, it refers not to what is oris not being done but to the phenomenological state of the doer.” (Slingerland2003: 7)Seeminglyeffortless, wu-wei can be understood as a dynamic, un-self-conscious state ofmind of an agency that is optimally active and effective. This effortless flowaccurately resonates with what I have experienced throughout my journey in IAM (VR), created by Susanne Kennedy, Markus Selg, Rodrik Biersteker andRichard Janssen in 2021. During this experience, the vivid bewilderment of‘being here but not here’ reflects an uncanny sublimation of the body incyberspace. As my vision travels deeply inside, my physical body, “in theabsence of doing exertion”, remains situated in an enclosed cubic space in thegallery where the journey takes place. Such attentiveness of consciousnesstraveling through the virtual reality within the stillness of one’s body evokesa pertinent embodiment of Wu-Wei. Positioned itself in the stance ofcritical posthumanism, this essay asks how do we consider the physical form of the human body,assembled in reality-reality within the immersive sharing and exchangingprocess of virtual-reality? What kind of transformation that the human bodymight experience when it immerses into that otherworldly reality? I Am (VR),as an embodied performative happening of both artistic research andpractice of virtual reality, provides insightful perspective in searching forpossible answers. Taking this analysis as a departure point, this essay furtherinvestigates the possible entanglements between the ‘I’ and the ‘VirtualReality. @font-face{font-family:\"Cambria Math\";panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;mso-font-charset:0;mso-generic-font-family:roman;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face{font-family:\"Arial Unicode MS\";panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;mso-font-charset:128;mso-generic-font-family:swiss;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:-134238209 -371195905 63 0 4129279 0;}@font-face{font-family:\"@Arial Unicode MS\";panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;mso-font-charset:128;mso-generic-font-family:swiss;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:-134238209 -371195905 63 0 4129279 0;}@font-face{font-family:STSongti-TC-Regular;panose-1:2 1 6 0 4 1 1 1 1 1;mso-font-charset:136;mso-generic-font-family:auto;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:647 135200768 16 0 1310879 0;}@font-face{font-family:\"@STSongti-TC-Regular\";mso-font-charset:136;mso-generic-font-family:auto;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-fo","PeriodicalId":37044,"journal":{"name":"Body, Space and Technology","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76142754","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Deserted Devices and Wasted Fences is acaptivating critique on consumer culture and the role technology plays, and canplay, in our understanding of the world around us and ourselves. Dani Ploeger’scollection of essays offer a guided tour of items and memories, like a livingmemory box. These writings probe our relationships with devices and what they representin our culture; from mobile phones to projectors, from smart fences to strap-ondildos. Ploeger’s provocation unravels from the journey of a device; to theintertwining of the human and non-human technology, shifting gears to the symbolismand mythology of military and state devices of control, closing with thecultural interaction with architectural decisions made in urban landscapes.Although seemingly grand, and without a doubt ambitious, in subject matter,Ploeger evokes the tone of memoir, incorporating reflections of his travels andpersonal happenings, with philosophical and political deliberation; bringing inkey thinkers to ratify and expand his unique perspectives.
{"title":"Literature Review - Dani Ploeger, Deserted Devices and Wasted Fences: Everyday Technologies in Extreme Circumstances","authors":"Benjamin Hunt","doi":"10.16995/bst.8436","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.16995/bst.8436","url":null,"abstract":"Deserted Devices and Wasted Fences is acaptivating critique on consumer culture and the role technology plays, and canplay, in our understanding of the world around us and ourselves. Dani Ploeger’scollection of essays offer a guided tour of items and memories, like a livingmemory box. These writings probe our relationships with devices and what they representin our culture; from mobile phones to projectors, from smart fences to strap-ondildos. Ploeger’s provocation unravels from the journey of a device; to theintertwining of the human and non-human technology, shifting gears to the symbolismand mythology of military and state devices of control, closing with thecultural interaction with architectural decisions made in urban landscapes.Although seemingly grand, and without a doubt ambitious, in subject matter,Ploeger evokes the tone of memoir, incorporating reflections of his travels andpersonal happenings, with philosophical and political deliberation; bringing inkey thinkers to ratify and expand his unique perspectives.","PeriodicalId":37044,"journal":{"name":"Body, Space and Technology","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75126531","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article uses a dance-somatic standpoint to explore the complexities of body-technology relations across the virtuality and corporeality of bodies and environments using multi-person Virtual Reality technology (VR). Immersion into a virtual environment (VE) using VR can lead to a sense of presence, of ‘being there’. Dancers move attending to a field of sensation which is felt and tactile, undertaking somatic and sensory practices to de-centre vision so to foreground and thus activate non-visual and somatic senses. From this dancerly standpoint, entering into a VE brings into play the immediate effect of a perceptual tension or ‘gap’ between the visual, virtual environment and the physical, felt environment. Technologists and artists engaging with VR typically find ways to cover-over this perception gap in order to create a reality that is fluidly and synchronously experienced by the participant. This article introduces and discusses two participatory performance projects Figuring (2018) and Soma (2020) which challenge this approach. Drawing on participant responses to Figuring, and the creative development of Soma, the article presents and discusses six themes which unpack and challenge normative notions and expectations around VR technology and how bodies sensorially engage with the technology; and discusses an ‘ethics of care’ which calls for somatic activation and participatory agency in human encounters with technology. Throughout, the article offers a commentary on the tensions between a thematic research approach and an intuitive, practice-led approach in the analysis of participant testimonies and in the creative processes of performance-making.
{"title":"Returning to the Body: Somatic Sensing in Multi-Person Virtual Reality Technology","authors":"Lisa May Thomas","doi":"10.16995/bst.7968","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.16995/bst.7968","url":null,"abstract":"This article uses a dance-somatic standpoint to explore the complexities of body-technology relations across the virtuality and corporeality of bodies and environments using multi-person Virtual Reality technology (VR). Immersion into a virtual environment (VE) using VR can lead to a sense of presence, of ‘being there’. Dancers move attending to a field of sensation which is felt and tactile, undertaking somatic and sensory practices to de-centre vision so to foreground and thus activate non-visual and somatic senses. From this dancerly standpoint, entering into a VE brings into play the immediate effect of a perceptual tension or ‘gap’ between the visual, virtual environment and the physical, felt environment. Technologists and artists engaging with VR typically find ways to cover-over this perception gap in order to create a reality that is fluidly and synchronously experienced by the participant. This article introduces and discusses two participatory performance projects Figuring (2018) and Soma (2020) which challenge this approach. Drawing on participant responses to Figuring, and the creative development of Soma, the article presents and discusses six themes which unpack and challenge normative notions and expectations around VR technology and how bodies sensorially engage with the technology; and discusses an ‘ethics of care’ which calls for somatic activation and participatory agency in human encounters with technology. Throughout, the article offers a commentary on the tensions between a thematic research approach and an intuitive, practice-led approach in the analysis of participant testimonies and in the creative processes of performance-making. ","PeriodicalId":37044,"journal":{"name":"Body, Space and Technology","volume":"81 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86898498","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This papercritically evaluates how emotional and intentional movement is conceptualisedand deployed in social robotics and provides an alternative by analysingcontemporary robotic artworks that deal with affective human-robot interaction(HRI). Within HRI, movement as a way of communicating emotions and intent hasbecome a topic of increased interest, which has made social robotics turn totheatre and dance due to the expertise of these fields in expressive movement.This paper will argue that social robotics’ way of using performative methodswith regards to emotional movement is, nonetheless, limited and carries certainchallenges. These challenges aregrounded on the claim that social robotics participates in what the authorcalls an ‘interiority paradigm’. That is, movement is understood to be theexpression of inner, pre-determined states. The 'interiority paradigm' poses several challenges to the development of emotional movement, with regards to unaddressed human androbotic imaginaries, an emphasis in legibility and familiarity, and arestrictive interior/exterior binary that limits the role of movement in anaffective connection. As an example of how robotscould be imagined beyond this interiority paradigm, the author proposes to turnto contemporary robotic art.Robotic art’s view on affective movement as a matter of evocationand of performative co-creation might inspire the development of robots thatmove beyond the requirement of being mere copies of a human interiority. While the intersection between robotics andthe performing arts is a fruitful field of research, the author argues in thispaper that the way in which movement is currently being developed throughperformative methods has certain shortcomings, and that the perspective of roboticart on affective movement might open up a more interesting area of explorationfor social robotics, as well as expose those aspects of theatre and dance thathave being unaddressed in robotics.
{"title":"Affective Movement in Robotic Art: Alternatives to the ‘Interiority Paradigm’ in Social Robotics","authors":"Irene Alcubilla Troughton","doi":"10.16995/bst.7963","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.16995/bst.7963","url":null,"abstract":"This papercritically evaluates how emotional and intentional movement is conceptualisedand deployed in social robotics and provides an alternative by analysingcontemporary robotic artworks that deal with affective human-robot interaction(HRI). Within HRI, movement as a way of communicating emotions and intent hasbecome a topic of increased interest, which has made social robotics turn totheatre and dance due to the expertise of these fields in expressive movement.This paper will argue that social robotics’ way of using performative methodswith regards to emotional movement is, nonetheless, limited and carries certainchallenges. These challenges aregrounded on the claim that social robotics participates in what the authorcalls an ‘interiority paradigm’. That is, movement is understood to be theexpression of inner, pre-determined states. The 'interiority paradigm' poses several challenges to the development of emotional movement, with regards to unaddressed human androbotic imaginaries, an emphasis in legibility and familiarity, and arestrictive interior/exterior binary that limits the role of movement in anaffective connection. As an example of how robotscould be imagined beyond this interiority paradigm, the author proposes to turnto contemporary robotic art.Robotic art’s view on affective movement as a matter of evocationand of performative co-creation might inspire the development of robots thatmove beyond the requirement of being mere copies of a human interiority. While the intersection between robotics andthe performing arts is a fruitful field of research, the author argues in thispaper that the way in which movement is currently being developed throughperformative methods has certain shortcomings, and that the perspective of roboticart on affective movement might open up a more interesting area of explorationfor social robotics, as well as expose those aspects of theatre and dance thathave being unaddressed in robotics. ","PeriodicalId":37044,"journal":{"name":"Body, Space and Technology","volume":"49 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74592648","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The paper 'Zoom: a case-study' explores the process of the staging of a hybrid performance that took place in September 2021 in Malta as a response to the Covid scenario. This production was watched online and live, with actors performing, using both realities. The project also explores the notion of space, whether it is the virtual, as opposed to the 'real', and the different spatial dynamics that this performance occurred in. In fact, the performance happened in two 'real' spaces, connected one to the other through an intricate use of screens and cameras, in such a way that whichever way the audience decided to watch the performance in, they could still understand the narrative of the play. The paper is analysed by juxtaposing literature on hybridity against the experiences of the different stakeholders involved in this production, namely, the co-producers, the director (the researcher of this paper), the technical director, the actors and members of the audience, with the aim of analysing and evaluating the dynamics of the production as a model of good practice and discern whether it can provide a framework to work in for the restricted reality that the local industry is in currently, as well as for the future.
{"title":"Zoom: A case study","authors":"Tyrone Grima","doi":"10.16995/bst.7964","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.16995/bst.7964","url":null,"abstract":"The paper 'Zoom: a case-study' explores the process of the staging of a hybrid performance that took place in September 2021 in Malta as a response to the Covid scenario. This production was watched online and live, with actors performing, using both realities. The project also explores the notion of space, whether it is the virtual, as opposed to the 'real', and the different spatial dynamics that this performance occurred in. In fact, the performance happened in two 'real' spaces, connected one to the other through an intricate use of screens and cameras, in such a way that whichever way the audience decided to watch the performance in, they could still understand the narrative of the play. The paper is analysed by juxtaposing literature on hybridity against the experiences of the different stakeholders involved in this production, namely, the co-producers, the director (the researcher of this paper), the technical director, the actors and members of the audience, with the aim of analysing and evaluating the dynamics of the production as a model of good practice and discern whether it can provide a framework to work in for the restricted reality that the local industry is in currently, as well as for the future.","PeriodicalId":37044,"journal":{"name":"Body, Space and Technology","volume":"78 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75721652","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The way we tell stories shapes what we are: it articulates the way we position ourselves in relation to the world. This article explores how immersive practices, as used in virtual reality and intermedial performance, provoke novel dynamics between artist and audience that no longer fit within Western traditions of aesthetic exchange and furthermore challenge our understanding of narrative production and reception. It proposes that new ways of reasoning are needed to allow audience agency and the evolving role of the artist to be explored more fully than is currently possible in mainstream theatre scholarship. One source that can provide a model for considering the dynamics between audience and performer in immersive performance is the Indigenous story systems of Australia. There is a significant synergy between the structure and operation of First Nation songlines and contemporary immersive performance. This is explored with reference to the work of contemporary anthropologists and Indigenous scholars and to recent immersive work from the companies Kaleider and Theatre Conspiracy. The article considers how both ancient narratives and contemporary immersive practices require people to engage with data/ physical space in a specific manner in order for stories to be realised. Furthermore, both bestow creative responsibility and the role of custodian on the user, through whose actions narrative is manifested. Immersive performance challenges assumptions about how information is generated, processed, and passed on, and the power structures involved in such exchanges. This research explores how non-traditional narrative practices can assist the debate about the future of storytelling.
{"title":"Narratives of the future: immersive stories / indigenous roots","authors":"Elizabeth Swift","doi":"10.16995/bst.7960","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.16995/bst.7960","url":null,"abstract":"The way we tell stories shapes what we are: it articulates the way we position ourselves in relation to the world. This article explores how immersive practices, as used in virtual reality and intermedial performance, provoke novel dynamics between artist and audience that no longer fit within Western traditions of aesthetic exchange and furthermore challenge our understanding of narrative production and reception.\u0000\u0000It proposes that new ways of reasoning are needed to allow audience agency and the evolving role of the artist to be explored more fully than is currently possible in mainstream theatre scholarship. One source that can provide a model for considering the dynamics between audience and performer in immersive performance is the Indigenous story systems of Australia. There is a significant synergy between the structure and operation of First Nation songlines and contemporary immersive performance. This is explored with reference to the work of contemporary anthropologists and Indigenous scholars and to recent immersive work from the companies Kaleider and Theatre Conspiracy. The article considers how both ancient narratives and contemporary immersive practices require people to engage with data/ physical space in a specific manner in order for stories to be realised. Furthermore, both bestow creative responsibility and the role of custodian on the user, through whose actions narrative is manifested.\u0000\u0000Immersive performance challenges assumptions about how information is generated, processed, and passed on, and the power structures involved in such exchanges. This research explores how non-traditional narrative practices can assist the debate about the future of storytelling.","PeriodicalId":37044,"journal":{"name":"Body, Space and Technology","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81800502","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ten in the morning isnot the most usual time for a press view to open, nor is the requirement toshow ID and Vaccination Pass, but at the Palazzo Cipolla (lit. ‘Onion Palace’)on the Corso del Rinascimento in the centre of Rome, this was the routine to seean intriguing show of work by David Quayola, an Italian digital artist, longresident in London, but here displaying a variety of pieces made over the lastfourteen years. Suffice to say there was not an ice filled dustbin of Peronibottles in sight.
{"title":"David Quayola: Digital Art Need Not Bore","authors":"Neil Morris Harvey","doi":"10.16995/bst.8235","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.16995/bst.8235","url":null,"abstract":"Ten in the morning isnot the most usual time for a press view to open, nor is the requirement toshow ID and Vaccination Pass, but at the Palazzo Cipolla (lit. ‘Onion Palace’)on the Corso del Rinascimento in the centre of Rome, this was the routine to seean intriguing show of work by David Quayola, an Italian digital artist, longresident in London, but here displaying a variety of pieces made over the lastfourteen years. Suffice to say there was not an ice filled dustbin of Peronibottles in sight. ","PeriodicalId":37044,"journal":{"name":"Body, Space and Technology","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77070414","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This Perspectives’ (or Review) paper focusses on the interdisciplinary, communal artproject: Dello Scompliglio and one of its multi-layered, hybridised artprojects presented there, titled: Camera# 3 (Chamber 3). I visited both the project spaces and some of the externalart projects including the one above during a visit to Lucca in June, 2021. Theaim of the Association is to offer to musicians, performers, installationartists and dancers the possibility to create their work in an outdoorenvironment and recreate this as a transmutation in the performance andexhibition spaces. I found the range of creative art topics covered, which areaimed at varying age groups, to be fascinating and very relevant tocontemporary experimental and digital performance.
{"title":"The Dello Scompliglio Project and Camera #3 (Chamber 3","authors":"Sue Broadhurst","doi":"10.16995/bst.7972","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.16995/bst.7972","url":null,"abstract":"This Perspectives’ (or Review) paper focusses on the interdisciplinary, communal artproject: Dello Scompliglio and one of its multi-layered, hybridised artprojects presented there, titled: Camera# 3 (Chamber 3). I visited both the project spaces and some of the externalart projects including the one above during a visit to Lucca in June, 2021. Theaim of the Association is to offer to musicians, performers, installationartists and dancers the possibility to create their work in an outdoorenvironment and recreate this as a transmutation in the performance andexhibition spaces. I found the range of creative art topics covered, which areaimed at varying age groups, to be fascinating and very relevant tocontemporary experimental and digital performance.","PeriodicalId":37044,"journal":{"name":"Body, Space and Technology","volume":"67 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79543957","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}