Joanne Scott

The Salford samples

The Salford Samples is a practice-as-research project in intermedial place-making. Using materials that arise from the city of Salford, including fragments of its cultural history, an autobiographical audio diary, and images/footage of the place itself, a range of shifting combinations are created. Through the mixing of diverse materials, as part of live performances and in online ‘video-texts’, issues related to this fast-moving, redeveloping, and conversely traditional and static place, arise. Specifically, questions around ‘solastalgia’ or ‘the distress that is produced by environmental change impacting on people while they are directly connected to their home environment’ (Albrecht et al. 2007, 95) emerge. In addition, these factors both foster and disrupt ‘place-attachment’ in a contemporary urban environment.

‘Affective encounters’: live intermedial spaces in sites of trauma

ABSTRACT This article addresses live intermediality as a tool for creative learning in the context of workshops carried out with young people in the town of Terezin, in the Czech Republic, site of the Nazi concentration camp, Theresienstadt. Live intermediality, as a mode of live media practice, involves the real time mixing and merging of sound, image, text and body, with a particular focus on the intersection between digital and physical modes. Employing both a written exposition and intermedial materials, in the form of a ‘video-text’, the article reflects on, positions and opens up this practice, specifically in relation to the ‘affective encounters’ [Bennett, Jill. 2005. Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma and Contemporary Art. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press., 37] it generated between the workshop participants and the ‘traces of past people and events’ [Simon, Roger I., Sharon Rosenberg, and Claudia Eppert, eds. 2000. Between Hope and Despair: Pedagogy and the Remembrance of Historical Trauma. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 7] in Terezin. In doing so, I propose that live intermediality, with its emphasis on the real time mixing of diverse elements and responses, has a particular capacity to generate creative practice which is ‘transactive’ (Bennett 2005, 5) and where affect ‘flow[s] through bodies and spaces, rather than residing within a single subject’ [Bennett, Jill. 2005. Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma and Contemporary Art. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 13]. With its focus on ‘the act of doing as the generator of meaning’ [Bryon, Experience. 2014. Integrative Performance: Practice and Theory for the Interdisciplinary Performer. London: Routledge, 214], this practice prompted ‘affective encounters’ with aspects of the past trauma of Terezin, through the participants’ live intermedial creation, in and in response to the present site.

The Performer-Activator in Live Intermedial Practice

Within this chapter, the role of performer-activator in live intermedial practice is explored and analysed. In the first section, theories dealing with the body and presence in performance are addressed, resulting in new language to describe the particular position and manifestation of the performer-activator. This is followed by analysis of the performer-activator’s role as both ‘precarious’ and ‘becoming’. Finally, specific and recurrent interactions in live intermedial events are used to analyse the role and actions of the performer-activator, resulting in a set of terms and distinctions to describe and define what this role is and how it works in practice.

Event-Making in Live Intermedial Practice

This final chapter seeks to sum up what a live intermedial event is, how it is made and what emerges from such events. The first section involves a consideration of ‘event’ as read through Derrida and Deleuze and a formulation of the particular elements that constitute a live intermedial event. This is followed by analysis of two of these key elements—intermedial improvisation and the autopoietic system that generates intermedial events. Finally, two contrasting events are considered, leading to a formulation of what emerges from live intermedial events in all their forms and a set of terms and distinctions that define live intermediality.

Research Methodology and the Developing Praxis

This chapter sets out the chronological progression of this research project, exploring and developing live intermedial praxis. Firstly, the methodological spurs to the inquiry are addressed, specifically the models of Practice as Research (PaR) that informed the research, including consideration of how elements such as documentation were employed in the project. The second section of the chapter charts the movements, shifts and challenges of the research project, along with the choices made as to the development of live intermedial practice, through an account of the main events created. In this section, reflections, documentation and responses to events are woven together to offer a multimodal view of the ways in which the research developed and why.

Live Intermedial Practice and Its Lineage

This chapter outlines, describes and defines the practice of live intermediality. Initially, its core elements, processes and modes of event-making are laid out, with a focus on the consistent features of this particular live media practice. Following this, the practice is positioned within a lineage of similar practices and modes of performance. Through analysis of and comparison with the practices of live audio-visual performance, VJ-ing, live cinema, video art and live art, the distinctive features of live intermedial practice are drawn out. Such features are collated to form the conclusion of the chapter.

Intermediality in Live Intermedial Practice: A Re-configuration

This chapter addresses theories around intermediality in performance, placing such ideas and formulations directly in relation to live intermedial practice in order to understand how intermediality works in this particular practice. Firstly, definitions of intermediality in performance are discussed. Secondly, theories around the operation of intermediality—how it works—are addressed. Finally, what intermediality produces, specifically in terms of the nature of the experience generated, is considered. In each case, the theoretical frameworks are addressed through specific features and instances of live intermedial practice in order to reconfigure what intermediality in this practice is, does and produces.