Performative Symposium for Ecological Spectatorship
(2018)
author(s): Juriaan Achthoven, Rhian Morris
published in: Research Catalogue
This page consists of the program of the Performative Symposium for Ecological Spectatorship, that took place on the 16th of October in Het Huis Utrecht.
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The symposium is organised by Gaia’s Machine: an upcoming artistic research collective exploring the intersection between art, technology and nature. Aims for the symposium are:
- Exchange knowledge between arts and sciences leading to a cross-fertilization of ideas and practices related to ecological spectatorship
- Reflect on our positioning as young artists & scientists at a time of ecological crisis
- Open a space for a young generation to question our responsibility and to explore potential methods of moving forward
The term ecological spectatorship draws awareness towards humanity’s entanglement within an ecological web. We approach ‘ecology’ from an ethical perspective, addressing the responsibility we have as a human species in relation to the earth (our oikos). Furthermore, we focus on ‘spectatorship’ – a branch within theatre studies that is concerned with the relation between makers and performers and the audience. We emphatically include the spectator in the performative space. Ecological spectatorship expresses a concern that in our view is not only relevant for theatre makers but also for politically engaged scientists.
In the symposium we will not only take the placement of the spectator into account but we will allow the spectator to become actively engaged in making sense of ecological spectatorship. We are keen to create ample space for the audience to reflect on their experience and to open an exchange of knowledge between both objective and embodied knowledge, and between the collaborators as well as the audience.
We will be researching the proposition of ecological spectatorship through the form of a performative symposium – a play on the traditional form of the symposium by making it both artistic and participatory.
PD Arts + Creative Symposium 2025
(last edited: 2025)
author(s): PD Arts + Creative
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
The PD Arts + Creative Symposium takes place at LocHal in Tilburg (NL) on 20 June 2025. This year’s symposium will highlight the programme’s multidisciplinary character by zooming in on the diverse fields of practice that its researchers operate in, connect to, and impact. It asks where, how, and with whom does the PD-research resonate? And what is the contribution of artistic and creative research to societal challenges?
How to Chant for a Thin Place: in honour of Stephanos Stephanides
(last edited: 2018)
author(s): Someone has to do this
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
Symposium leading into an Exposition for the Society of Artistic Research
“How to Chant for a Thin Place”:
Borders and Bridges in World Literature and Art
November 30th - December 1st, 2018
Faculty of Humanities, University of Cyprus, with the support of the Visual Artists Association,
at Phytorio, Nicosia Municipal Gardens
the old sea
between two islands
was once
my dwelling
till the horizon lifted
to let us through
so I still wonder
how to write thick poetry?
how to chant for a thin place?
(excerpt from the poem “Karpassia” by Stephanos Stephanides, 2007)
This symposium aspires to a gathering of ideas that thematically relate, stem from, or respond to the multi-layered and interdisciplinary scholarly and literary work of Stephanos Stephanides. Few Cypriot writers have succeeded in producing work that functions as a bridge between the literatures of post-colonial transnational communities. The multiple dimensions of Stephanides’ contribution to literature, critical theory, and translation studies place Cyprus at the epicenter of conversations on Indian, Caribbean, American as well as Mediterranean communities. The goal of the conference is to take Stephanides’ poetry, prose, critical work, and films as a springboard for a productive exchange amongst scholars and creative practitioners around the ideas of transitional literatures and translatability, as well as performative, creative, and ritual practices, and post-colonial critique. New perspectives that introduce radical reconfigurations of identities, aesthetics, and language are particularly welcome.
Six Formats
(last edited: 2018)
author(s): ingrid cogne, Tobias Pilz
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
The arts-based research project Six Formats (February 2015 - June 2018) analysed various formats commonly used in relation to arts-based knowledge articulation and/or communication in the present day: publication, exhibition, symposium, lecture-performance, screening, and workshop. Six Formats created situations of dialogue in, on, and between each of its formats. Six Formats facilitated co-processes of ongoing self-reflection and re-articulation aiming for reciprocal attentiveness to the respective needs of the project, its partners, and co-researchers. Six Formats was funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF, PEEK, AR291-G21) and hosted by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.