Pluriversal scenographicsand staging world feelings by Rachel Hann.

2024

 

"In practice, this means the task of design is to ‘unfold the political capacities of design by going against the analytical tendency in critical design studies to examine primarily how design through its very materiality, “hard-wires” particular kinds of politics into bodies, spaces, or objects’. Escobar has argued that concepts of ‘the World’ as singular and definitive stems from a historical narrative, which positions the Global North as the centre of humanity’s intellectual and cultural growth. 


Contemporary media are the most effective purveyors/sellers of the OWW vision. Pluriversal communications strategies would serve two main purposes: to construct narratives that persuade people into thinking about why the One-World story no longer quite makes sense; and to contribute to make visible the projects by which other practices attempt to persevere and perform themselves into worlds (including social movements)".

 

"Pluriversal approaches seek to acknowledge and ‘make visible’ multiple ideas of world that co-exist and thrive with one another."


"Belongingness, isolates how scenographic encounters ‘irritate’ the typical flow of relations in a certain place and time. Borrowing from Alan Read’s idea that performance acts as a ‘foreign body, as a third person, always at odds with those things upon which it does its work’, I frame scenographics as ‘hypertrophic’ (relating to an increase in size, structure, or function) insomuch that they tinker, reshape or reorientate the traits of a place."

 

"Edward Soja outlined how a thirding of the ontologically (study of being) real and the contrived (deliberately created rather than arising naturally or spontaneously.)the authentic and the inauthentic, has been conflated (combine (two or more sets of information, texts, ideas, etc.) into one.) in a contemporary culture of ‘real fake’ environments: We no longer have to pay to enter these worlds of the “real fake” for they are already with us in the normal course of our daily lives, in our homes and workplaces, in how we choose to be informed and entertained,

in how we are clothed and erotically aroused, in who and what we vote for, and what pathways we take to survive."


"Instead, I argue that scenographics are a collection of place orientating traits that irritate flows of place and, in turn, manifests felt intensities of being placed (as in feeling out-of-place, askew or favourably in-place). This is not to suggest that scenographics are separate from everyday experience, on the contrary. From the stage-like qualities of a garden to the use of scent in visual merchandising, scenographics amount to the techniques and processes through which scenes (as assemblages of feeling and materiality) are performed".


"Performances of world are not to imply a strict contrivance (fake, unreal,

fictitious) – to which I would assign the theatrics of world – but instead how cosmological orienta-

tions and assumptions are uttered into being through cultural systems (media, stories, language)".





TANJA BEER ECOSCENOGRAPHY

An Introduction to Ecological Design for Performance

2021

 

"Ecologically engaged practice is less ‘a vision of self-expression and more about creating the conditions for change to occur’ (Ariana Jordao in Allen et al. 2014, 22)".

 

"There is a sense in which these artists put themselves in a position where they can be ‘acted through’. The artist then becomes spokesperson, agitator, mediator, medium and, in some cases, healer…These artists tend to mix more with scientists, builders, economists, energy specialists, farmers and future scenario planners than with the peers they might have trained with…they are fluid and flexible and their activity either suggests adaptive changes that re-establish equilibrium or creates a new order…This demands a great deal of risk-taking and trust in imagination…an ability to with-stand oppositional points of view, uncertainty and transitional states.(Allen et al. 2014, 27–282)"


"Create events that invite new feelings, new orientations, and new emotions of place. Do not be
frightened to celebrate dwelling, voicing, and practising the hitherto (until now) politically impossible act of withdrawing from unhealthy cultures of pro-ductions without futures".

ETHICS OF CREDITING 


Crediting/Referencing as a method of working. 


Can background research be used as context for generating new work?

1) DEFINING MY RESEARCH CONTEXT:

 

- Purpose: Creating links/connections between people. Starting with me and myself, myself and others and ultimately others and others. My aim or the question I have is whether more touchy or still taboo social topics could reach a wider audience if it is intertwined with a range of themes? The unknown not defined as "other" but as "to get to know"/ 

 

- Scope: "Touchy Topics" being gender, identity and cultural norms, specifically in the Balkans. The urgency comes from my personal experience of being Serbian and growing up in a completely different environment. Feelings of misplacement in both contexts and viewing my identity as if it exists outside of myself.


4) TRANSPARENCY / ACCOUNTABILITY

 

Self-awareness / Self-evaluation

Knowing that I am never completely "right" and to always leave room for a change in perspective. Not to be stubborn to change and new insight. Be clear with my intentions and to never force something in a direction which simply suits my narrative in that moment. Be critical with myself openly so others can be constructively critical with me.


ORIGIN / HISTORY

CREDITING CRAFT

FUNCTION

JOURNEY 

FOUND DESTINATION

FOLLOWING STEP 

 

 

"SOURCING THE ORIGINS OF INCOHERENT NARRATIVES"

 

"VISUALIZING CONCEPTS"

 

2) STAKEHOLDERS + PARTICIPANTS:

 

- Mapping stakeholders: Chosen family, family, friends, HKU, myself, class-mates, colleagues, collaborators, balkan communities, spectators..


QUESTIONING ETHICS OF USING FOUND OBJECTS / PROPS

 

Is it ethical to use something which is taken out of its original context and placed into a new one? And on the contrary, how much does the history, origin, initial function etc.. play a part in staging, or makes additional meaning?  

 

Overall, my question is, what are my intentions with using found objects and how can I use them with integrity but also without creating strict rules and restrictions on making.


CLASS-MATES

BALKAN COMMUNITIES

FRIENDS

-Clarifying Relationships:

CHOSEN FAMILY

SPECTATORS

HKU

ME

COLLABORATORS

COLLEGUES

FAMILY 

SETTING SPACE

 

5) ACCREDITATION

 

Framing the act of crediting as part of the re-search rather than a tedious task done at the end of a project. An act which enriches the research. Build relationships by giving credit where credit is due. Acknowledge all the unnoticed sources which led the research. Locations, people, environment, animals, songs, movies, strangers, past-lovers etc..


"CELEBRATION"

 

Combining interests and common topics within a performance/scenographic installation which can link, connect and surface similarities or a sense of relatability for familiar and unfamiliar topics.


"AFTER-EFFECT"

 

Could people be permanently affected by a cultural/art event that will create an after effect of more understanding for one another.


"INDIVIDUALITY"

 

A variety of people/topics with different beliefs, cultures, morals, stand points. Acknowledging these differences and aiming to create accessible work which can reach these different demographics at the same time.


3) CULTURAL + SOCIAL IMPACTS

 

- Cultural Sensitivity:

Gender/Sexuality 

Racial/Cultural 

Historical/Found Sources/Ownership

 

-Social Responsibility:

Can not represent a demographic from my individual perspective. That being "balkan" Communities in general. Need to be clear on my position as a privileged student who grew up elsewhere and is still having the choice to live abroad. Need to be clear about my intentions with the topics which I want to introduce. 

 

As someone who grew up in an international setting, I do not identify with a singular identity/culture. 

 

Acknowledging digital tools and accessibility used within research. Related to crediting/referencing.


ESTABLISHING RELATIONSHIPS


A relationship between people, objects and space. Can this be explored through incoherancy? Creating situations which are both fimiliar and un-fimiliar in order to find links and connections between opposing views. 

FOUND DESTINATION

USED