Posthuman Assemblages and Technologically Enabled Performances
Date of Event: May 28, 2022 Event Type: Interim Event
Posthuman Assemblages and Technologically Enabled Performances
Saturday 28 May 2022 at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh
To register for this hybrid event, please visit the Eventbrite page.
The discussion about collaborative relations between humans and other than humans was initiated during our last annual meeting in September 2021. Driven by a desire to continue such conversations and in order to develop a polyphonic discourse that recognises the heterogeneous mix of human and non-human others that operate within the nature/culture/technology continuum, we are organising an event that will take place at the University of Queen Margaret in Edinburgh on 28 May.
The Performance and New Technologies Working Group has invited proposals from researchers and practitioners interested in questions that address the predicament of technologically enabled performance practices seen in the context of posthuman assemblages that operate within the intersectional axes of analysis such as race, ethnicity, gender, age, (dis)ability and class.
Philosopher Rosi Braidotti critiques the anthropocentric hierarchy of species and exposes the dominant structures within both, humanism and anthropocentrism, that for centuries has been missing perspectives from the Global South, women and LGBTQ+ people. Braidotti posits that posthumanism seeks the inclusion of these missing people. She elucidates the current moment of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Sixth Extinction, in which humans and other-than-humans find themselves. She talks about posthuman subjects as assemblages that are in ‘the process of becoming’ named also as ‘nomadic becoming’ (Braidotti, 2018, 2–3). This way of thinking asserts that ‘subjectivity is not restricted to bound individuals but is rather a co-operative trans-species effort (Margulus and Sagan, 1995) that takes place transversally, in-between nature/technology; male/female; black/white; local/global; present/past – in assemblages that flow across and displace the binaries’ (Braidotti, 2018, 3). In a similar vein, Legacy Russell subverts a binary system, which assumes that ‘ourselves are unchangeable’ (Russell, 2020, 8), she calls for engagement with technoculture that will ‘use “body” to give material form to an idea that has no form, an assemblage that is abstract’ (2020, 9).
Against this backdrop, we ask: how do technologically enabled performance practices challenge and subvert binary oppositions? How can we read contemporary intermedial practices as posthuman assemblages co-operated by trans-species efforts?
During this event, we invite you to ponder collaborative relations between humans and other-than-humans. We will discuss questions that address the complex relationships that occur within technologically enabled performances in the context of posthuman assemblages. In order to develop a polyphonic discourse that recognises the heterogeneous mix of human and non-human others that operate within the nature/culture/technology continuum, we are inviting you to this hybrid event, facilitating participation by online delegates alongside those attending in person.
Immersive and Interactive Technologies and Live Performance: VR/AR/MR practices
Date of Event: April 6, 2019 Event Type: Interim Event
Immersive and Interactive Technologies and Live Performance: VR/AR/MR practices
TaPRA Performance & New Technologies Working Group Interim Event
Saturday 6th April 2019, University of South Wales, Cardiff Campus, The ATRiuM
Booking: https://immersivetechnologies.eventbrite.co.uk [This is a one-day event, with tea/coffee and lunch included and all participants must be TaPRA members. If you are not currently a member, you will be asked to join the organization at the interim rate of £15 via http://tapra.org/join-tapra/ before the date of the event.]
Keynote Speaker: Dr Jorge Lopes Ramos (executive director ZU-UK)
Launch & Wine Reception: Launch of Performance and VR Practice special issue, IJPADM. Wine reception and conversation with Dr Kerry Francksen and Prof. Sophy Smith (guest editors).
Following on from the annual conference at Aberystwyth and previous group events and conversations, the aim of the 2019 interim event is to explore different practices and modes of immersive and interactive technologies in live performance, as well as to investigate new narrative possibilities and audiences’ virtual experiences in live performance created by immersive technologies. As Kerry Francksen and Sophy Smith (2018) note, ‘[t]he use of virtual reality (VR) technologies has seen a significant resurgence in both industry-led and artistic communities in recent times. This re-emergence can be linked to the continuing growth and advancement in smart phone technologies (e.g. developments in accelerometers and gyrospic chips), as well as a significant interest within the games industry for developing a greater quality gaming experience.’ We want to explore this emergent theme and extend the 2018 TaPRA working group’s discussions on Empathy and Inclusiveness in Immersive Technologies to question: What new tools and spaces do immersive technologies offer to theatre and live performance? What opportunities and challenges do immersive technologies bring to the digital performer/performance-maker, from new forms of audience/participant interaction to new performance training methodologies, to new rehearsal methods and documentation strategies?
Itinerary: 11.30-12:20 Registration, lunch [ATRiuM, Mingle], One-to-one short Demo of Goodnight, Sleep Tight performance (first come first served) [ZEN Room] 12:20 Welcome 12:30 Keynote: Dr Jorge Lopes Ramos (executive director ZU-UK) 13:30 Dr Joseph Dunne-Howrie (research associate at ZU-UK Theatre and Digital Arts company), Post-Immersive Performance. Chair: Dr Christina Papagiannouli (University of South Wales) 13:50 Break 14:00 Empathy, Inclusiveness and Embodiment in Immersive technologies performance practices Eleni Kolliopoulou (Ulster University), Empathy and inclusiveness in immersive technologies: Sky-field 1&2. Dr Styliani Keramida (University of Reading), Performance, Immersive Technologies and Theatrical Aesthetics: Remediating video gaming technologies in the theatre in order to produce effects of empathy and inclusiveness. Kerryn Wise (De Montfort University), DIS/PLACE. Chair: Dr Piotr Woycicki (Aberystwyth University) 15:15 Break 15:30 Immersive Storytelling and Dramaturgy: Immersive technologies as a Narrative Medium Dr Harry Robert Wilson (Digital Thinker in Residence, National Theatre of Scotland), Virtual Reality experiences as intimate performance. Prof. Sophy Smith (DeMontfort University), Immersive Dance Practice and Storytelling – a transdisciplinary approach. Dr Piotr Woycicki (Aberystwyth University), Intermedial dramaturgies of flux in the AR version of Our Lady of Shadows. Chair: Dr Joanne Scott (University of Salford) 16:45-18:00 Launch and Wine reception Launch of Performance and VR Practice special issue, IJPADM. Wine reception and conversation with Dr Kerry Francksen and Prof. Sophy Smith (guest editors).