In mid-June, I was delighted to be invited by Prof Kristen Kreider and Tom Clark alongside Dr Johanna Linsley to present at MARs (Mountains of Research, Goldsmiths University) to talk about what we are thinking and how we are acting during this time of transition: a time where we are moving so much of our interaction – teaching, meetings, research conversations, everyday exchanges – onto digital platforms.
As Kreider writes in her introduction to the session, ‘arguably, the infrastructures and patterns of behaviour that we are establishing quickly and rapidly in response to the coronavirus crisis will remain with us, in one form or another, for some time to come.’ This online seminar provided a moment of pause amongst the flurry of activity; a chance to think about how to be together in these strange, difficult and unusual times. How might some of the micro- solutions we find to manage ourselves, our daily routines and rhythms influence the macro structures our collective lives fit within? Importantly within all this mess, how do we envision our future world, how might we inhabit this world and how, more importantly can a space be opened for thinking and feeling together?
Johanna and I in our first appearance in ‘public’ since 08 Feb 2020 introduced the group to some of our recent and ongoing thinking around the performance of the ‘The Meeting’. Why do we meet? How do we meet? What are the protocols of ‘The Meeting’? How have they evolved over time, and how are they changing as we move on-line? There will also be a bit of thinking and talking about ‘flourishing’ and ‘withdrawal’.
Bios
Johanna Linsley is an artist, researcher and producer of performance. Her work is collaborative and often iterative, resulting in multiple outcomes or versions. She is interested in contemporary performance and Live Art; documentation of performance; sound, listening and the voice; queer domesticity; and modes of assembly. She is currently a lecturer at University of Dundee and postdoctoral research associate on the Leverhulme-funded project Acts of Assembly at the University of Roehampton.
Rebecca Collins is an artist researcher and lecturer in contemporary art theory at Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh. Her main research interests are in the fields of sound, listening, performance and writing. She is particularly interested in thinking through and developing practice-based methodologies for investigating aural attention, affect, mood and atmosphere through listening, text and vocal delivery techniques.