'Beware the Danger of Merging': Conceptual Blending and Cognitive Dissonance in the work of IOU Theatre

Deborah Middleton

Exposition

'Beware the Danger of Merging': Conceptual Blending and Cognitive Dissonance in the work of IOU Theatre (2015)

Deborah Middleton, Tim Moss

open exposition

About this exposition

This exposition introduces and analyses the work of British-based IOU Theatre, a company that has been exploring intermedial theatre and installation since 1976. IOU's work, we suggest, is characterised by their particular strategies for juxtaposing or fusing images, materials, and artistic media. We explore this aspect of IOU's practice through the lens of emergent cognition by drawing on Fauconnier and Turner's (2002) theory of conceptual blending. While Fauconnier and Turner's work applies broadly to the process underlying many cognitive acts, their model enables us to develop a nuanced understanding of IOU's particular creative 'blends' and to identify a 'resistance to the blend’ that proves essential to the IOU aesthetic. The authors have included first-person accounts of some of their own cognitive experiences in response to IOU's work as a way to track the application of conceptual blending in the reception and analysis of an artistic artefact or experience. The exposition both introduces to a wider readership examples of IOU's oeuvre and proposes a reading of conceptual blending as a tool for understanding creative processes, analysing artistic artefacts, and discussing audience reception – in works that particularly exploit creative collisions of imagery or media. In this way, it is our intention to contribute to artistic research a methodology for analysis and a lens through which some key artistic strategies can be illuminated. Our approach may be of interest to those concerned with the making, analysis, or reception of artistic work that is intermedial in the broadest sense.

type	research exposition
keywords	theatre, bisociation, performance, IOU, intermedia, conceptual space, conceptual blending, alternative theatre, visual art, fusion, emergent cognition, blending, experiential art, audiences, live art, reception
date	01/01/2015
published	31/08/2015
last modified	31/08/2015
status	published
affiliation	University of Huddersfield, UK
license	All rights reserved
url	https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/49027/49028
doi	https://doi.org/10.22501/jar.49027
published in	Journal for Artistic Research
portal issue	8.

Copyrights

name	ef IOU 2 versions 2 - copy
copyright	'Electric Field' (2009) IOU
license	All rights reserved
usages	video

name	Transformation of matter
copyright	'Electric Field' (2009) IOU
license	All rights reserved
usages	video

name	ef sequence showing props etc final
copyright	'Electric Field' (2009) IOU
license	All rights reserved
usages	video

name	Abstract Banner x
copyright	IOU Archive & 'Electric Field'
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	ORIGINS HEADER FINAL copy
copyright	IOU Archive, 'One IOTA, 1,2 & 3', 'Forced Landings'
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	shoes and hat
copyright	'Full Tilt' (1991) IOU
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	2 X TABLE
copyright	'2 x Table' (1993) Poster Shoot, IOU
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	efIELD 34
copyright	'Electric Field' (2009) IOU
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	Biblio banner copy
copyright	IOU Archive, 'Long Division'
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	fire puch and judy
copyright	'Just Add Water' (1989) IOU
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	cure on beach
copyright	'Cure' publicity (2001) IOU
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	UNSTABLE FINAL copy
copyright	'2 x Table' poster shoot, IOU Archive
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	Blend spaces
copyright	'Conceptual Mapping & Input Spaces', Fauconnier & Turner
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	IOU Grade AllPercy Dean_52
copyright	Propeller Shoes from 'Cold Fusion' (1997) IOU (Percy Dean)
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	goggles
copyright	'2 x Table' (1993) IOU
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	IOU Grade AllPercy Dean_29
copyright	Sculpture from 'Half Moon' (2011) IOU (Percy Dean)
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	IMAG0316
copyright	Sculpture from 'Half Moon' (2011) IOU
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	Double Vessel
copyright	'Vessel 1 and 2' from 'Half Moon' (2011) IOU
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	Deb's Venn
copyright	'Personal Schema' Venn Diagram (2014) Middleton
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	Vessel 2
copyright	'Vessel 1 and 2' from 'Half Moon' (2011) IOU (Percy Dean)
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	Vessel 1
copyright	'Vessel 1 and 2' from 'Half Moon' (2011) IOU (Percy Dean)
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	Vessel 3
copyright	'Vessel 1 and 2' from 'Half Moon' (2011) IOU (Percy Dean)
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	IOU Grade AllPercy Dean_81
copyright	'Vessel 1 and 2' from 'Half Moon' (2011) IOU (Percy Dean)
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	IOU title
copyright	'Antarctic Travelogue', Dean Clough
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	Submawhale Tim
copyright	'Subjective Experience of Encounter with Vessel 1 & 2' (2013) Moss
license	All rights reserved
usages	audio

name	Thread from Nose
copyright	'Electric Field' (2009) IOU
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	Crab Encounter
copyright	'Electric Field' (2009) IOU
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	Blizzard
copyright	'Electric Field' (2009) IOU
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	Frozen Tulip
copyright	'Electric Field' (2009) IOU
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	accident
copyright	'Electric Field' (2009) IOU
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	EF header copy
copyright	'Electric Field'
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

name	'Electric Field' 2009, IOU
copyright	'Electric Field' 2009, IOU
license	All rights reserved
usages	video

name	D & T IOU 1
copyright	'Electric Field' (2009) IOU
license	All rights reserved
usages	video

name	NEW CONCLUSION w txt copy
copyright	'Tattoo', 'Waylaid', 'Autoperipatetikos'
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

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'Beware the Danger of Merging': Conceptual Blending and Cognitive Dissonance in the work of IOU Theatre (2015)

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