The IFTR Theatre Research Congress in Belgrade was superb — besides my teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna I and my team are now preparing for the upcoming projects. There will be a lot going on in the coming months — especially the Vienna premiere of R.I.P. SERVICES — stay tuned!!
Im pleased to announce that I will present a research paper “On the dynamic of perception, power and exclusion – ‘sensory fields’, ‘experience fields’ and ‘body techniques’ as performance analytical and epistemological tools” at the Congress of the International Federation for Theatre Research in Belgrade on Monday 9 July 2018. Hope to see you at the General Panel Session 1, Panel 12 at 14:00-15:30!
Please see below for the abstract.
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Panel 12. Disciplinary Migrations
Chair: Maja Milatović Ovadia, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
Bertie Ferdman, City University of New York and Jovana Stokić, City University of New York
“Disciplinary Migrations: Issues in Contemporary Performance Art Research”
Joonas Lahtinen, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
“On the dynamic of perception, power and exclusion – ‘sensory fields’, ‘experience fields’ and ‘body techniques’ as performance analytical and epistemological tools”
Felisberto Da Costa, University of São Paulo USP and Maria Helena Bastos, University of São Paulo USP
“The mask as a dramaturgical device in contemporaneity”
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Abstract
“On the dynamic of perception, power and exclusion – ‘sensory fields’, ‘experience fields’ and ‘body techniques’ as performance analytical and epistemological tools”
In the wake of poststructuralist thought, it has become commonplace for us theatre scholars to acknowledge the interconnectedness of perception, knowledge, culture, and power in performance making and analysis. However, in our field, relatively little attention has been paid to explaining the functioning of the human perceptual apparatus through which we sense and make sense of reality and of artistic performances. Such explanatory efforts could open up new possibilities for addressing processes of exclusion, inclusion and “othering” both in performance situations and beyond them.
In this paper, I present a novel analytical framework for locating and interrogating ways in which performance events engage and affect the participants, and for understanding the culture-bound dynamic of perception, power, knowledge and the body in contemporary performance practice. My framework is based on a detailed view of our bodily and cognitive ways of sensing and making sense of reality i.e. of how our experiences and knowledges take form through the interaction between our bodies, the environment, and culture. Drawing especially from Jacques Rancière’s, Marcel Mauss’s, and Michel Foucault’s views of human perception and experience, the main concepts – or “tools“ – of this framework are ”sensory fields“, “experience fields” and ”body techniques“.
I suggest that the crucial ideological assumptions as well as the processes of exclusion, inclusion and “othering” in any performance are not to be seen solely in their “goals” or “themes” but, even more distinctly, in the modes of bodily participation that the performance employs. Thus, my framework takes the bodily dimension – what is actually done to and expected from the bodies of the participants during the performance event – as the starting point for critical analysis. I conclude my paper by outlining how the concepts ”sensory fields“, “experience fields”, and ”body techniques“ have informed my PhD research project at the University of Helsinki.
I’m pleased to inform that our performance/installation R.I.P. SERVICES will premiere in Vienna in early January 2019 – more info to follow! Our collective onemorequestion devised and realized the project for URB 16 Urban Art Festival organized by Kiasma Theatre/Finnish National Gallery in 2016.
I and my dear colleague team at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna – Jakob Lena Knebl, Valerie Lange and Claudia Lomoschitz – have been busy with coordinating and planning the yearly week of open doors (Akademierundgang) at the Institute for Education in the Arts (IKL). In addition to the artworks and project presentations by students at our institute (Karl-Schweighofer-Gasse 3, 1070 Wien), this year our programme includes the exhibition we never sleep in the office of the Vice-Rectors of the Academy at Spittelau (Augasse 2-6, 1090 Wien), curated by us (Knebl, Lahtinen, Lange, Lomoschitz). Here are a few first snapshots, more photos to follow …
Photos: J. L. Knebl, J. Lahtinen. Works in the exhibition we never sleep by Sophia Hatwagner, Maximilian Hisse, Beatrice Küninger, Ulrike Leitner, Alexander Mohr, Johanna Serdinschek, Elia Stefan and Moritz Zangl.
Artists of the video installation some everyday realities: Sofía Fuenzalida Ihnen, Martina Höpfner Asmussen, Sarah Peprnik, Florian Salvesberger and Alisa Wolf. The installation was developed with support from Joonas Lahtinen.
Our team at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna will co-host workshops and lectures today at Kunsthalle Wien at Museumsquartier — hope to see you there! The event is convened by Prof. Elke Krasny and Curator Vanessa Joan Müller of Kunsthalle Wien.
Welcome to the one-day symposium UNSETTLING FEMINIST CURATING on Friday 01. December 2017 at the Atelierhaus of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna!! The conference is curated by my dear colleagues Prof. Elke Krasny and Barbara Mahlknecht together with Lara Perry and Dorothee Richter. The last few weeks we at the Department of Art and Education have been busy with the preparations.
Hope to see you there — join us for exciting and progressive lectures, discussions and performances!!
I have been invited to present a research paper at the “ACT.MOVE.PERFORM.” conference at the University of Technology Dresden (TU Dresden / Institute of Art and Music, Department of Art Education) on Sunday 08 October 2017. My presentation is entitled How to address politics of the sensible in participatory performance practice? ‘Sensory fields’, ‘experience fields’ and ‘body techniques’ as materialist-performative analytical tools and it builds on my previous article in Nordic Theatre Studies (2015). I look forward to an interesting day with fellow researchers and artists!
