Guest: Edward Scheer
Date: 2014-10-18 14:00 ~ 2014-10-18 16:00
Address: Chronus Art Center (Room101, Bldg18, NO.50 Moganshan Rd, Shanghai)
LANGUAGE: English (with Chinese translation)
ABOUT LECTURE:
In Scenario, (2011) a new media installation by Dennis del Favero and iCinema, spectators enter a gigantic 3-D screen space and are engaged by the humanoid inhabitants of the world they find there. These humanoids engage the spectators as witnesses and participants in an uncertain scenario. What is it? It looks like the aftermath of some horrific act, not an inadvertent or random act of nature but a deliberate tearing in the social fabric. Some kind of fairy tale gone wrong? The scenario occurs in a variety of interactive spaces and environments, in underground bunkers, empty buildings and on a frozen lake. This essay uses Scenario as a case study to explore the notion of the posthuman in performance, the ethical and aesthetic questions it raises and in the work of iCinema more generally.
ABOUT SPEAKER:
Dr. Edward Scheer is Professor in Theatre and Performance Studies in the School of the Arts and Media at the University of New South Wales. He is a founding editor of the journal Performance Paradigm and has edited a number of books including Antonin Artaud: A Critical Reader (Routledge 2004). His writing on performance art and aesthetics has appeared in TDR, PAJ, Parkett and Performance Research and in catalogue essays for the AGNSW, Documenta 12, the Biennale of Sydney 2006 and the Auckland Triennial 2012. Author of Scenario, a study of new work from the iCinema Project (UNSW Press and ZKM, 2011), his latest book is entitled Multimedia Performance (Palgrave 2012) with Rosie Klich. Scheer’s study of Mike Parr's performance art, The Infinity Machine (Schwartz City Press, 2010) is the first comprehensive account of this aspect of the artist’s practice. A former chairman of the board of directors of the Performance Space in Sydney, he was also President of PSi, Performance Studies international, the international professional association in the field of performance studies from 2007-2011. He is joint chief investigator on the ARC funded projects, Towards an Experimental Humanities, and New Media Dramaturgy and is a member of the ARC College of Experts for the Humanities and Creative Arts.
ABOUT iCinema:
The iCinema Centre for Interactive Cinema Research, established in 2002, is an interdisciplinary arts, engineering and science centre spanning the Faculties of the College of Fine Arts, Arts and Social Sciences, Engineering, Law and Science at the University of New South Wales. It brings together researchers and postgraduate students in aesthetics, artificial intelligence, atmosphere science, civil engineering, computer science, digital media, media theory, multimedia design and law. The iCinema research program focuses on research into interactive media for benchmark applications across the arts, broadcast, construction, environment, heritage, museum and visualisation sectors. In particular, it is focused on the way next generation technologies can be used to imagine new ways of living, learning, researching and working.
www.icinema.unsw.edu.au
