Writing Theater – qualitative methods, situated knowledge, and the making of performance

München, 5.-7. Juli, 2023

Tagung organisiert von  Ulf Otto, Anna Raisich, Luise Barsch

The production of performance has gained renewed attention in recent years. Artistic processes in theaters have come into focus, as well as their social foundations, institutional frameworks and material entanglements.
This has led to an increased adaptation of methodologies from the social sciences. In particular, qualitative methods, most prominently praxeological and ethnographical approaches, have opened up new ways of engaging with theater.
But the expansion of the methodological toolbox is not just that. It reinvents epistemological relations and has lasting repercussions for the subjects and objects of research. While traditionally theater scholars found themselves within the dispositive of theater, as spectators confronting the performance, the move backstage and elsewhere equates to a loss of this privileged position and inevitably leads to an epistemological decentering of performance.
And this in turn provokes a closer look at the practices of research: techniques of description (protocols) and inscription (photographs, recordings) come to the fore, as do the diverse social and material agents that are mobilized to turn fleeting observations into reliably defined and delimited subjects of knowledge.
Accordingly, the aim of the conference is on the one hand, to discuss ethnographical strategies in the domain of theater studies, including their epistemological repercussions – and on the other hand, to take a look back at established writing strategies, taking inspiration from the rich body of critical self-reflection in ethnography: What happens to theater when scholars move backstage, and what can we learn from there about our scholarly selves?

Wir freuen uns über Beiträge von Wissenschaftlern aller Karrierestufen – sowohl Vorträge von etwa 20 Minuten Länge als auch Poster-Präsentationen von Projekten im Frühstadium mit einem Zeitrahmen von 10 Minuten sind erwünscht. Wir sind bestrebt, einen Raum für produktiven Austausch, eingehende Diskussionen und gemeinsame Perspektiven zu schaffen.

Bitte reichen Sie kurze Abstracts + Bio ein (300 words max. both).
Deadline für die Abstracts: 15.12.2022
Zusage erhalten Sie bis: 15.1.2023
Kontakt: gewerke@lrz.uni-muenchen.de

Die Konferenz wird in erster Linie vor Ort in München stattfinden, aber wir werden für Teilnehmer, die nicht persönlich anwesend sein können, Streaming und vollständige Online-Panels anbieten. Die Kosten für Reise und Unterkunft werden für die Vortragenden übernommen. Eine anschließende Publikation ist geplant.

Die Konferenz ist Teil des Forschungsprojekts Die Kunst der Gewerke. Eine Praxeographie des Theaterapparats gefördert von der

„Rethinking Theater and Technology“ [11.11.]- Presentation at the conference Diffractive World-Making (Bloomington)

Diffractive World-Making: Theatre & Science Beyond the Capitalocene

Indiana University Bloomington, Cook Center

November 10-12, 2022

Conference Organizers: Teresa Kovacs & Kevin Rittberger

Diffractive World-Making: Theatre & Science Beyond the Capitalocene starts from the smallest possible constellation: one playwright, one philosopher. Berlin-based playwright Kevin Rittberger meets feminist and philosopher of science Karen Barad. On the basis of Barad’s book Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning and subsequent works, Rittberger explores the potential of a ‘diffractive theatre’ for our technoscientific age. At the same time, Barad explores our ‘troubled time/s’ and offers a queer, postcolonial critique that gives the impulse for our discussions on aesthetics and ethics. The initial encounter provides an opening through which to engage with concepts like response-ability and multi-species aesthetics, as well as with issues like colonialism, shrinking population, reproductive justice, and a critical theory for a damaged planet.

The conference itself takes up Barad’s method of diffraction and expands to an exceptional international cast of leading critics, artists, and theorists that think-with and nearby Barad and Rittberger, including McKenzie Wark, Rebecca Schneider, Tavia Nyong’o, Karin Harrasser, Ulf Otto, Bini Adamczak, Alison Calhoun, Penda Diouf, Luiza Prado, and Tzveta Kassabova.

Aim is not just to shed light on the entanglement of the sciences and aesthetics, but to demonstrate how productive it can be to read them through each other. In so doing, we can investigate their potential to radically rework established Western concepts and categories of causality, time, and space, and contribute to rethinking the troubled times in which we live.

Conference Program

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2022

Cook Center, IU Bloomington

5-8pm

Introduction by the conference organizers Teresa Kovacs and Kevin Rittberger

Entangled Lecture

Karen Barad:

Troubling Time/s. Undoing the Future.

Kevin Rittberger:

breaking through the fourth, fifth, sixth wall…? on diffractive theatre

Reception

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2022

Cook Center, IU Bloomington

10am-12pm

Talk

Rebecca Schneider:

Gesture, Redaction, Diffraction, and Flight: Arts of the Interstice

Dialogue

Alison Calhoun and Ulf Otto:

Rethinking Theater and Technology: Early, Late and Never Have Been Moderns

1-3pm

Talk (via zoom)

Bini Adamczak:

Fractional Relationality

Talk

Tavia Nyong’o:

Relationality? No Thanks! On Black Performance and its Critical Refusal

3.15-5.15pm

Reading

Penda Diouf:

colonial stories: from France to Namibia. Read by Eboni Edwards

Talk

McKenzie Wark:

Dysphoric Planet

6.30pm

FAR Arts Center

Dance

Tzveta Kassabova:

Prometheus. Beginnings. Based on plays by Kevin Rittberger

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2022

Cook Center, IU Bloomington

10am-12pm

Talk

Karin Harrasser:

Violence and the Care for Images: Doing History with Strangers

Conversation

Art and Agency: On Mind, Matter, and Media

with Karen Barad, Karin Harrasser, Tavia Nyong’o, McKenzie Wark moderated by Rebekah Sheldon

1–3pm

Reading and Workshop:

Penda Diouf, Kevin Rittberger:

„Blackout White Noise.“ On ‘ethico-onto-epistem-ological’ writing

Talk

Luiza Prado:

WAVES/WEEDS/WORLDS

4pm

Performance

Luiza Prado:

The Sermon of the Weeds

This conference is supported by the following Indiana University’s departments and programs: Germanic Studies, Presidential Arts and Humanities Program, The Office of the Vice President for International Affairs, the Cultural Studies Program, Art History, French and Italian, Theatre & Dance, Comparative Literature, Cinema and Media Studies

This conference is held in person. However, we are happy to share a zoom link with those who cannot travel to Bloomington but would still like to attend the conference. To receive a link and for any other information regarding the conference, please contact Teresa Kovacs (tekovacs@iu.edu)

„Ästhetische Dimensionen (post-)digitaler Interaktionsräume“ [30.8.] – Panel auf der Tagung Verschwörung, Fake und Gewissheiten an der ZHdK

Verschwörung, Fake und Gewissheiten. Fragen zum Beitrag der Künste und ihrer Theorien in Zeiten des gesellschaftlichen Wandels

Jahrestagung des Doktoratsprogramms »Epistemologien ästhetischer Praktiken«, Fr., 28. – So., 30. Oktober 2022

Panel 5: Ästhetische Dimensionen (post-)digitaler Interaktionsräume

Medienwissenschaftliche Perspektiven, So. 30. Oktober 11.00–13.00 Uhr 

Soziale Netzwerke und Smartphone-Applikationen schaffen es durch ihr interaktives Design und das Vorhandensein stetig neuer Inhalte, die Aufmerksamkeit der Nutzer:innen an sich zu binden. Welche digitalen Inhalte dabei den Nutzer:innen präsentiert werden, hängt stark von den teils undurchsichtigen Algorithmen der digitalen Plattformen und auch den durch die Anwendungen gespeicherten personenbezogenen Daten ab. Neben den algorithmischen Komponenten scheint auch der ästhetischen Dimension im Bereich der Kommunikation und Interaktion in digitalen Räumen eine entscheidende Rolle zuzukommen. Wie wird das ästhetische Empfindungsvermögen durch die digitalen Inhalte kontrolliert und welche Interdependenzen eröffnen sich in dem Machtgefüge zwischen datengetriebener Algorithmizität und (post‐)digitaler Interaktion?

Ulf Otto, Sabine Himmelsbach, Anna Lisa Martin-Niedecken