Co-authoring the Future: Stories from the Road
(2022)
author(s): Jessica Renfro
published in: Research Catalogue
Framed by the metaphor of a road trip, this exposition explores the use of participatory performance in building cultural discourse about decision-making during the climate crisis. Using Rancière’s concept of the emancipated spectator, common human experiences such as childhood development of subjectivity (acquired through Lacan’s mirror phase and symbolic order) and image schemas (as discussed in Mark Turner’s The Literary Mind) are explored as possible strategies for co-authoring an artistic landscape alongside spectators. An audio narration accompanies the written work, attempting to explore these theories in the form of a correspondence between the author and her elusive self-awareness. Each track reflects on these individual-but-common experiences as a method for creation. The author concludes that a co-authored artistic landscape may only be accessible to participants who are enticed to set aside limiting social norms in order to explore it, and this is the challenge of the artist.