Brunel Seminar 010:Johannes Birringer, ‘Dispositif: Performance Repositions’

Wednesday October 27, 2010
Johannes Birringer, Brunel University

‘Dispositif:   Performance Repositions’

In this speculative lecture, Birringer seeks to develop methodological frameworks for grappling with the daunting challenges that underlie a sociological or pragmatist/materialist analysis of contemporary "interfacial installations." After introducing the notion of the "performative dispositif" (extending studies of cinematic and scenographic arrangements), questions will address the material processes in installations and what it might mean to advance knowledge or explore sensory perception.  How do performer-participants assess or value attributes or affordances of "technical beings," of programmed responsive environments or hybrid media spaces which behave with and towards the visitor-participant – as if becoming living, moving, animate matter, changing their vitality and displaying a range of symptoms in their materiality (motion, agency, autonomy, protocol behavior, and ritual aspect, etc.). With this research, Birringer proposes to place more attention on how a particular dispositif enables the interface relations technically while observing how human performers respond to responsive environments or experience its sensate articulations.


Johannes Birringer is a choreographer and media artist. As artistic director of the Houston-based AlienNation Co.(www.aliennationcompany.com), he has created numerous dance-theatre works, video installations and digital projects in collaboration with artists in Europe, the Americas, China, Japan and Australia. His digital oratorio Corpo, Carne e Espírito  premiered in Brasil at the FIT Theatre Festival in 2008; the interactive dancework Suna no Onna was featured at Laban Centre and Watermans, London. The mixed reality installation UKIYO toured Eastern Europe in June 2010. He is founder of Interaktionslabor Göttelborn in Germany (http://interaktionslabor.de) and director of DAP-Lab at Brunel University, West London, where he is a Professor of Performance Technologies in the School of Arts. His new book, Performance, Technology and Science, was released by PAJ Publications in 2009.


The Centre broadcasts selected Performance Research Seminars live from the Brunel Drama Studio - making them available to anyone in the world interested in the subject. Johannes Birringer and Marlon Barrios Solano are co-producing the talks and discussions as live webcasts webcast live on dance tech net TV . The partnership between the Centre and dance-techTV, is an experiment in collaborative video broadcasting (the channel is dedicated to interdisciplinary explorations of the performance of movement. The channel allows worldwide 24/7 linear broadcasting of selected programs, LIVE streaming and Video On-demand).