Performativity/Space: Working Title

2011

In the context of the increasing use of new spaces for choreography and new modalities of choreographic practice, such as the generation of choreographic installation spaces and screendance, this paper proposes that theorists such as Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Brian Massumi, Manuel deLanda and Susanne Langer, Michel de Certeau, Henri Lefebvre, Doreen Massey, Nigel Thrift and Paul Rodaway offer a rich resource for a discussion of choreographic space. In this paper the notion of choreographic space is predicated on the conception of space as a dynamic, relational concept, and suggests that choreographic space is constituted as intensive space, a transient spatiotemporal network of forces, vectors and tensions, processual rather than stable and, crucially, experiential. It further proposes that extensive and intensive space are by no means oppositional forms of experiencing space, rather they are co-present in any experience of choreographic space whether that experience is of ...

Three participatory art projects, three ways of constructing and experiencing space: as the outcome of interactions between the audience and the structures themselves.

In the context of the increasing use of new spaces for choreography (urban buildings and streets) and new modalities of choreographic practice such as the generation of choreographic installation spaces and screendance, this article proposes that these theorists offer a rich resource for a discussion of choreographic space. The notion of choreographic space is viewed here through understandings of space forwarded by philosophers and theorists such as Gilles Deleuze and

This work is a tool for the facilitation of the creative processes in the development of a potential space at the point where practitioner, user and an encountered space converge/fracture. I will theorise a performance model by the exploration of several key ideas, or elements of those ideas concerned with space. The application of that model will function as a 'first encounter' with space for a group of undergraduate student/actors who will create a performance text based on those convergences/fractures.

This paper explores some of the important steps in the evolution of my doctoral research, which aims to relocate the notion of dramaturgy from the performing arts into interactive installation art. It briefly contextualises dramaturgy in the 21 st century, and analyses the dramaturgical transformations caused by the impact of technology. It uncovers the still open process of the composition of a performative interactive installation, which supports the development of space dramaturgy concept. Developing the concept of space dramaturgy presupposes the analysis of other compositional elements vital for the elaboration of the concept: space, body and technology. The first aspect to be analysed is the philosophical scope related with both individual and collective experience of space. This draws on Bachelard, Merleau-Ponty and Lefebvre's spatial theories. The theoretical underpinning is followed by a review of the process behind practice-based research, reflecting on the possibilities of adapting that to a dramaturgical questioning. Finally, the paper enquires into the interweaving of spatial bodily experience, participation, technology, the importance of time, and memory as a mean of finding performativity in interactive art installation, taking as a specific example the doctoral practice research.

The relations between body, space, and time are of interest for many architects and theorists. Body and space, considered separately, form discrete wholes. However, bringing the two together reveals their interdependence. This research emerges from that perspective: that body and space must be considered in relationship. They are also affiliated with time through performance: specifically for this paper, art and architecture. Body disturbs the order of the space, and space violates and ruins the body.1 Both are apt to violate and ruin the expected behaviour of the other one. This relation is termed ‘manipulation tension’ in this research. Space tends to manipulate the body using its spatial compulsivity and intangible aura. Body also has the same tendency on space and positions itself using methods such as movement, perception, sensation, and events. Body and space come into balance using their own manipulation methods. This balance is not a mutual reversion to the neutral state. It is an equilibrium based on stress, which comes from their natural tendencies. The purposes of this research are to study the aforementioned subjects (body and space), reveal their methods (perception, sensation, movement, kinesis, events, and spatial configuration), and highlight the ‘performance moments’ that can be correlated with time. In this research, space is considered as a structure in relation with body. It is built through experience and performatives. Body is acknowledged as a concept - from a perspective of physical and intellectual integrity - which sustains its contextual relation to the space it exists. This research explicates an analogy of artistic and architectural examples, which approach ‘performance’ using body (contemporary art) and space (architecture).

The interaction between space and body can be discussed through both in production and use of space. This interaction becomes weak, a prohibitor wall occurs between space and user. From that point; in order to remove that wall and increase the interaction, it is necessary to examine the position of body. Body can perceive, interpret and understand its environment through senses and it also effect the environment with its actions and visions. Body's unfinished, undecisive and unformed potentials can be pointed out as the dynamic structure of the body. Spatial experience is related to properties of spatial elements, but also to subject that has experienced space according to these properties' positions and movements. Then instead of seeing space design as a three dimensional Cartesian idea, it would be more efficient to analyse and define it as a dynamic system along with movements of body. With the movements, space becomes a time wise and lively structure. The relation of space with time makes dance and architecture come together with the sub-issues that dance has: the choreography of movement, orientation and wideness. Researches investigate issue of space in architecture along with terms 'space-body-movement' while looking the process through an interdisciplinary way, 'dance' becomes also a related term. This study focuses on the space information with body which experiences, changes, and creates and the aim is to connect the space and dance analysing the behavioural patterns through body. Hence, it is acted with suspicion towards the memorization of existing space understanding. So space can be defined as a 'Potential Movement Network' comprising with the areas of dance such as body, movement and balance. In this research, varied examples will be opened up to discussion analysing space-body-dance interaction, with the acceptance of space representing different experiences.

2008

TRG: On Transient Realities and their Generators, 2006

The author has been has been mixing realities for many years. In his paper "Ethico-aesthetics in t* performative spaces" he outlines his history of theoretical and critical discussions, that are enlightening and contextualising in many ways. Coming from a mathematics background, his take on the use of scientific ideas and technology in the arts is somewhat distinct yet related to the papers in this volume. He uses the term "media choreography" as a term that attempts to describe MR environments not as databases and rule systems, but rather as dynamics and quasiphysics. This ties in nicely with some of the concepts thrown around in the discussions of Digital Physics in the Data Ecologies Workshop: attempting to build quasi- or pseudophysical environments. Sha concentrates mainly upon (approximations of) continuous systems rather than accepting / working with / exploiting discrete systems. He is, however, aware of the differences between these things, which not all practitioners in these fields are. One language point that remains pertinent is the use of the expression "co-structure" rather than "interact" when referring to the behaviour of visitors and systems in complex MR environments. There is no turn taking involved, it is much more a case of the visitors and the environment taking part in a collaborative structuring of the media architecture in an inter- twined and simultaneous collection of actions. His closing comments, where he forcefully holds the term "play" to be distinctly different from the ideas of ("the carcass of") "game" are a rallying call to all those who continue to believe that there is and should be an important difference between the two.

2023

The essays collected in "Performing Space" are intent on moving forward the discussion about the relevance and significance of the interrelation between performance and space. Besides, in virtue of the fact that the contributors to the volume have different disciplinary or artistic backgrounds, this collection is aimed to initiate an interdisciplinary examination of performance and space, and to foster a mutually enlightening dialogue among areas as diverse as philosophy, architecture, performance theory and practice, theatre studies, anthropology, literary theory and pedagogy. "Performing Space" establishes an international forum, where the provenance, the conceptuality and the contemporary potentialities of performance are discussed and brought to bear on the built environment, both past and present. The essays in the first section of Performing Space, “Performance, Theory, Space”, endeavour to reflect on theoretical and epistemological issues that concern the status and conditions of artistic performance, space or both, by having recourse to writings by Friedrich Nietzsche, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Hannah Arendt and Jacques Rancière, among others. The second section, “Performing Space: Applied”, comprises essays focusing on case studies of actual performances and evaluating the outcome of specific performative events. The essays in question acknowledge and analyse the significance of particular spaces and their evident impact on the corresponding performances.