A two day event held at Birkbeck College and London South Bank University (London) focusing TaPRA Performance & New Technologies as a form of mediatised theatre and performance 

Organizer: Dr Maria Chatzichristodoulou

https://www.lsbu.ac.uk/whats-on/no-way-out-200417

Mediatisation – the increasingly pervasive influence of new media technologies in the form of social institutions and ideological apparatuses on society, culture and consciousness since the late twentieth century – has radically shaped our everyday lives and relationships. Mediatisation as a social and cognitive phenomenon has changed the way theatre and performance are produced, shaped, performed and perceived. This shift has led to a state where there is nothing left outside of mediatisation. Hence, we argue, all contemporary theatre and performance today is mediatised.

The mediatised theatre and performance of the 21st century propose a practice, and offer ground for the development of a scholarship, in which ontological boundaries between media and performance, live and mediatised, analogue and digital, are no longer useful or even possible to consider. Mediatisation lies within the aesthetic and political [un]consciousness of the works, whichever form or manifestation those choose to take. It is, directly or implicitly, embedded within their architectures, dynamics, and processes; we might even argue that, in some ways, mediatisation is the works.

This two-day event seeks to investigate the processes and practices of mediatised theatre and performance in the 21st century with a particular interest in such questions as: How does the mediatised theatre and performance of the 21st century engage with digital culture and labour as, partly, products of capitalist ideology and economy? Is there potential for resistance (in the wider understanding of the term) within theatre as a mediatised practice? Or, to use Stiegler’s analogy, can theatre and performance approach the digital as a pharmakon in order to engender social ‘remedy’, opening up critical spaces for resistance and dissensus in contemporary neoliberal culture?

Day one will take place at Birkbeck College. Day two will take place at London South Bank University.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers

• Prof. Matthew Causey, Trinity College – 20 April 2017, Birkbeck College
• Prof. Andy Lavender, Surrey – 21 April 2017, LSBU

The event

• Book Launch & Wine Reception (21 April, LSBU)
• Launch of Intermediality and Spectatorship in the Theatre Work of Robert Lepage: The Solo Shows (Aristita I. Albacan, 2016). Wine reception and conversation with Professor Christopher Balme (Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich) (21 April, LSBU)

The interim event is organised and convened by Dr Maria Chatzichristodoulou (LSBU) and Dr Seda Ilter (Birkbeck). The TaPRA Performance and New Technologies WG Conveners are Dr Jem Kelly, Dr Christina Papagiannouli, and Dr Jo Scott.

This TaPRA Interim event is supported by the School of Arts and Creative Industries and the Centre for Research in Digital Storymaking at London South Bank University; the Birkbeck Centre for Contemporary Theatre, Birkbeck Centre for Technology and Publishing; Vasari Research Centre for Art and Technology (Birkbeck College, University of London); Birkbeck Interdisciplinary Research in Media and Culture (BIRMAC), and Department of English and Humanities (Birkbeck College, University of London).