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Thematic courses

Winter 2018, CairoThematic Course

Roles and Rituals: Performativity in Contemporary Arts and Society

Roles and Rituals: Performativity in Contemporary Arts and Society
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Course details

Cycle
Winter 2018, Cairo
Length
10 weeks
Taught in
English

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About the course

This 10 week course investigates the ways in which humans perform (both voluntarily and involuntarily) in daily life, in legal settings, and cultural contexts. Through analysing contemporary art practices, performance studies theories, and political/legal scenarios, we will investigate the norms, traditions, and power structures around different actions/gestures. Starting off with an introduction to the general ideas, the course will gradually move towards the question of what performativity means now, in the context of constant surveillance, consumption, virtual citizenships, and algorithmic control. Towards the end of the course, we will aim to actively self-reflect on the the roles and positions of the classroom setting, by participating in collaborative performative experiments (role-play, workshops, performative games, and learning experiments.

Performance studies is an interdisciplinary field that studies performance and uses performance as a lens to study the world, drawing from theories of the performing arts, anthropology and sociology, literary theory, and legal studies.

The course progresses through 3 categories: • Societal Roles: from Gender to Labour • The Legal Theatre: Speech Acts and Algorithms • Pedagogy and Role-Play: Collaborative Experiments

Who teaches it

  • Ash Moniz is a multi-disciplinary artist working primarily between the realms of performance, video, and installation. Moniz holds a BFA from OCAD University (Toronto, 2014), a scholarship at the Nanjing University of the Arts, and had participated in the Mass Alexandria Independent Studio Program in (Alexandria, 2016). Most of his recent projects, investigate the role of the nation-state within the politics of transportation logistics and citizenship, using actors, scripts, found footage, and interviews.

    Moniz has exhibited with galleries and museums internationally, such as Townhouse Gallery (Cairo), Sishang Museum (Beijing), Minsheng Museum (Shanghai), and Birch Contemporary (Toronto). He was the assistant curator of the AMNUA Museum in Nanjing in 2013/14, and the director of the Boxes|Zones Quarters residency/ exhibition in Casablanca in 2014. He has presented lectures and talks at the University of Ottawa, OCAD University in Toronto, Silent-Green Kulturquartier in Berlin and State of Concepts in Athens.

Course flow

Showing 10 sessions

Sessions without a date

  • Definitions, names, and general ideas Performativity as a theory Performance as Visual Arts practice Theatre, Intervention, Video Performance, Lecture Performance, Conversation about the curriculum Going over what to expect Intorucing the learning experiments at the end of the course

    • Richard Schechner's performance theoryRichard Schechner
    • Video Samples of Contemporary Performance ArtBas Jan Ader, Marina Abramovic, Coco Fusco Zhang Huan, Francis Alys, Li Ming, Sophie Calle, Adel Abdelssamad, Rabih Mroue

    In class

    • DiscussionConversation about the curriculum

  • Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick: The theory of the “homosocial”

    • Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist TheoryJudith Butler
    • Performativity, Precarity, and Sexual PoliticsJudith Butler
    • Drag Performance ArtistsContemporary Arts
    • Valet ExportContemporary Arts
    • Becoming an ImageHeather Cassils
    • Temporary HusbandCatherine Chun Dong

  • Labour Consumption: Performativity of supply/demans Public Intervention as Art Performance

    • Labour and PerformanceGabriele Klein and Bojana Kunst
    • Punching the Time Clock for One YearTheching Hsieh
    • Work, Work, Work: A Reader on Art and LabourSternberg Press
    • Century of the SelfAdam Curtis
    • BBC Report and WTO ResignationYes Men
    • Silence of the SheepAmal Kenawy
    • Safely Manouvring Across Lin He RoadLin Yilin
    • Rebecca BelmoreContemporary Arts

  • Claire Doherty: Advertising/Preparing for a Future performative Moment Artists: Lee Walton, Situationist Happenings

    • The Ontology of Performance, Representation without ReproductionPeggy Phalen
    • Presence in Absentia: Experiencing Performance as DocumentationAmelia Jones
    • Society of the SpectacleGuy Dubord

  • Archetypes of Performativity Carl Jung psychology of Archetypes Typecasts, Tropes, and Sterotypes When Site Lost the Plot (Possible Studio Visit to Talk to Mohamed Abdelkarim, a local lecture-performance artist.

    • Covenant Transport: Move or DieAmanda Beech
    • Under Black CarpetsIlona Gaynor
    • The InterviewHarun Farocki

    In class

    • ScreeningWatch and Analyze Video
    • DiscussionGroup Discussion
    • Field visit(Possible Studio Visit to Talk to Mohamed Abdelkarim, a local lecture-performance artist.

  • Speech Acts. those verbal assurances and promises which seem not only to refer to a speaking relationship, but to constitute a moral bond between speakers,

    Performative Utterance Sentences which are not only describing a given reality, but also changing the social reality they are describing.

    Illocutionary Acts and Gestures illocution is what was meant, and perlocution is what happened as a result.

    JL Austin

  • Legal Performance: Declaration of Oath; Witness, Testimony, Evidence and Judgement

    Rana Hamadeh What if justice is the degree to which one can access theatre? What constitutes a public audience in age of surveillance?

    Performance Artworks Using Surveillance Technologies

    In class

    • DiscussionGroup Discussion

  • Study of Live-Action-Role-Plays The Performance of Algorithms Game Theory Methods of Learning: Role-Play, Games, Social Experiments, Project-based learning, Performative Reading Preparation for Role Play

    • Power Games: Rules and Roles in Second LifeMaria Backe
    • Code as Performative Speech ActInke Arms
    • Depressed ManDavid Worovics
    • The Trial of SuberDebtThunderbotHelen Knowles
    • The TrapAdam Curtis
    • Serious GamesHarun Farocki
    • LectureHito Steyerl

    In class

    • DiscussionReading and Discussing Examples
    • ExercisePreparation for Role Play

  • Interactive Role Play A type of role playing game in which each participant assumes a particular character and acts out various scenarios at events which last for a predetermined time

    In class

    • ExerciseUsing what we have learned throughout the course, we will create a role play scenario in which each student in the course will be designated a role, and using certain rules, we will act them out in a collaborative experiment.

  • Discussion on Yesterday’s Role Play Power dynamics, strictness of the rules, how can we analyze what happened, how much was planned, was it a success or failure. What reflections do we have on this experiment keeping in mind the things that we learned through the 5 weeks

    Recap on the course Reflections, critiques, etc.

    In class

    • DiscussionGroup Discussion

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