Joslin McKinney

Emergent objects: Designing through performance

Abstract This paper presents Emergent Objects 2, a portfolio of sub-projects funded by the EPSRC/AHRC ‘Designing for the Twenty-first Century’ (D4C21) initiative. Our focus is on the way interdisciplinary exchange and collaboration allows fluidity and responsiveness in uncertain design contexts. Resisting the Modernist, instrumental conception of design, Emergent Objects 2 does not propose an alternative model for direct emulation. Rather, the aim is to defamiliarise the design process; and to play with its nature and possibilities. The notion of a singular designer is displaced by the notion of a collaborative design process, whereby any participant is an active design agent, partaking in design functions. The paper explores how key performance concepts of play and embodied knowing are employed within our design practices, with illustrations from the three subprojects: Snake, SpiderCrab and Hoverflies.

Projection and Transaction: the spatial operation of scenography

Article which draws on practice as research performance to explore the nature of the operation of scenography. Uses the concept of projection to focus on the spatial nature of scenography.

Scenographic materialism, affordance and extended cognition in Kris Verdonck's ACTOR #1

This article addresses the theme of the ‘scenographic turn’ from the perspective of a spectators experience of scenography. By focusing on the materiality of scenography, I intend to draw particular attention to the role of the spectators body in the perception and reception of performance. The expansion of scenographic practice to incorporate forms where objects and materials are central to the audience experience requires us to rethink the ways we account for scenography. Recent interest in the use of concepts from cognitive science as a means of analysing theatre might provide some help with this. In this article I consider concepts of affordance and extended cognition to see how they might be useful in thinking through an experience of attending Kris Verdoncks ACTOR #1.

Editorial: On Value

This article examines entrenched debates around cultural value in neo-liberal contexts that have predominated over the last three decades; and moves on to examine how proposals for different forms of social and political structure suggest both alternative ecologies of value and a role for performance in designing them. We establish a broad frame for discussion of questions of value and culture by looking first at the current debate in the UK neo-liberal state, as exemplified by HM Treasury and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and then turn to what Baudrillard has to say about the State, general equivalence and modernitys adversarial union with Death. In traversing that range, we examine discussions of the evaluation of culture from a policy perspective alongside another set of discussions which address forms of resistance to global capitalism through ‘commonalism’ and social production. Finally, we take in both the pragmatics and the theoretical underpinnings of the left alternative scoped by Roberto Unger to see how ‘institutional contexts permanently open to their own revision’ might both support and depend on collaborative creative practices and sustain an alternative ecology of cultural value.

On Value and Necessity: The Green Book and its others

This article examines entrenched debates around cultural value in neo-liberal contexts that have predominated over the last three decades; and moves on to examine how proposals for different forms of social and political structure suggest both alternative ecologies of value and a role for performance in designing them. We establish a broad frame for discussion of questions of value and culture by looking first at the current debate in the UK neo-liberal state, as exemplified by HM Treasury and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and then turn to what Baudrillard has to say about the State, general equivalence and modernitys adversarial union with Death. In traversing that range, we examine discussions of the evaluation of culture from a policy perspective alongside another set of discussions which address forms of resistance to global capitalism through ‘commonalism’ and social production. Finally, we take in both the pragmatics and the theoretical underpinnings of the left alternative scoped by Roberto Unger to see how ‘institutional contexts permanently open to their own revision’ might both support and depend on collaborative creative practices and sustain an alternative ecology of cultural value.

Scenography, Spectacle and the Body of the Spectator

This article addresses the operation of ‘scenographic spectacle’ from the perspective of the spectator in order to consider the way the body responds to scenography. The denigration of spectacle has often been founded on its appeal to the body and the way it produces pleasurable but ultimately empty experiences. However, I propose that a reconsideration of the body as a site of perception and reception in scenographic performance might reveal the complex relationships between spectators, performance and the world. In this article, I analyse my own response to two performances; Royal de Luxes Sea Odyssey and Verdenteatrets The Telling Orchestra in the light of theories of kinaesthetic empathy and spatial production. In addressing the alleged gap between feeling and meaning which scenographic spectacle appears to produce, it is the interconnection of the phenomenal and social aspects of the spectating body that reveals the potential for resisting dominant modes of social production.

Seeing scenography: scopic regimes and the body of the spectator

Given the designation of theatre as “the seeing place” (Aronson 2005: 2) and the strongly visual nature of scenography, we might wonder at how little consideration has been given so far to the act of looking, whether in scenographic studies or in theatre scholarship more generally. Yet concerns within wider cultural discourse about a dominance of the visual that “has its end in rapt, mindless fascination” (Jameson 1990: 1) have certainly influenced the way we conceptualize the visual dimension of theatre experience as “a medium of optical illusion” (Ranciere 2007: 272) and have marginalized scenography as mere decoration or as a distraction. But there are, to borrow from John Berger (1972), different ways of seeing scenography that reveal themselves in the act of looking. In this chapter I challenge dominant interpretations of the act of seeing in theatre by arguing for the explanatory power of a dynamic, embodied conceptualization of scenographic spectatorship centered on co-construction.

The Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space 2015

This special issue gathers together a collection of different perspectives and voices from the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space (PQ) that took place in June 2015. Together these articles and images represent the diversity and global reach of the reflections and conversations that PQ facilitated. Rather than attempt a comprehensive report on PQ 2015, we have aimed to capture the range of motivations, impressions and evaluations of participation in the event. In that spirit, each of the editors offers their own perspective on the significance of PQ 2015 and the aims of this issue.

Interview with Liu Xinglin

Liu Xinglin is a renowned and award-winning Chinese stage designer. He won the Honorary PQ 2015 Award for Performance Design. He is Professor of Stage Design at The Central Academy of Drama, Beijing, China and he was the curator of the Chinese national exhibit at PQ 2015. In this interview with Joslin McKinney he reflects on his long-standing involvement with PQ and the way this feeds in to his practice as a designer and as a teacher of scenography.

Interview with Katrin Brack

Katrin Brack is an influential and acclaimed German stage designer who has become known for her minimalist approach to design using single materials; confetti, snow, fog, tinsel, balloons. Her approach to set design represents a new way of thinking about what scenography is. Where many stage designs are solid and often static constructions, Brack’s designs are fluid, responsive and ephemeral. And rather than simply offering an environment for performers, her designs seem to be another character on the stage. In this interview with Joslin McKinney and Kara McKechnie she talks about her approach to materials and how their use requires the interaction and imagination of not only the director, but the actors, the technicians and the audience.