Virtual Embodiment as/and the Threshold of Love

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Harris

This essay draws upon the author’s performance script Fall and Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project as a provocation for considering the ways performance texts provide a threshold for somatic inquiry, and for recognizing the limits of scholarly analysis that does not take up performance-as-inquiry. Set at the Empire State Building, this essay embodies the connections and missed possibilities between strangers and intimates in the context of urban modern life. Fall’s protagonist is positioned within a landscape of capitalist exchange, but defies this matrix to offer instead a gift at the threshold of life/death, virtual/real, and love/loss. Through somatic inquiry and witnessing as threshold experiences, the protagonist (as Benjamin’s flaneur) moves through urban space and time, proving that both scholarship and performance remain irrevocably embodied, and as such invariably tethered to the visceral, the stranger, risk, and death.

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederik Dahlmann ◽  
Gareth Veal

In this paper we investigate whether innovative and flexible contractual arrangements can support the process of achieving ambitious sustainability goals. We explore this question through an analysis of the role of umbrella agreements in driving energy savings in the building sector. Drawing on a case study of the iconic Empire State building, we examine the typical challenges faced by clients and contractors in devising suitable agreements that facilitate managing contractual and performance risks, as well as the sharing of responsibilities and cooperation between multiple project stakeholders. We find that the project arrangements appear to exhibit the adoption of the key characteristics commonly found in umbrella agreements which incorporate sustainability measures that maximize income through efficient delivery of outcomes. Specifically, this means that they need to enable stakeholders to manage repeated review cycles, complex perceptions and expectations, and different tacit assumptions and codes of behaviour, as well as managing and communicating in networks and obtaining agreement also from non-contractual parties. Moreover, we demonstrate that umbrella agreements can facilitate a network perspective of business relationships by emphasizing value co-creation and the embeddedness of firms within a network of interactions.


2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-57
Author(s):  
Mattias Jacobsson ◽  
Timothy L. Wilson

2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-40
Author(s):  
Teresa Schröder-Stapper

The Written City. Inscriptions as Media of Urban Knowledge of Space and Time The article investigates the function of urban inscriptions as media of knowledge about space and time at the transition from the late Middle Ages to the early modern period in the city of Braunschweig. The article starts with the insight that inscriptions in stone or wood on buildings or monuments not only convey knowledge about space and time but at the same time play an essential role in the construction of space and time in the city by the practice of inscribing. The analysis focuses on the steadily deteriorating relationship between the city of Braunschweig and its city lord, the Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, and its material manifestation in building and monument inscriptions. The contribution shows that in the course of the escalating conflict over autonomy, a change in epigraphic habit took placed that aimed at claiming both urban space and its history exclusively on behalf of the city as an expression of its autonomy.


2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 130-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cath Lambert

This article examines the political possibilities for an aesthetic disruption of urban space and time. Locating the discussion within debates about the neoliberal city, selected art-works from Fierce live art festival in Birmingham, England are used in order to examine how, in a specific and localised context, normative spatial patterns and temporal rhythms can be challenged and subverted. The analysis draws on, and contributes to, a sociological account of the centrality of aesthetics to political and social organisation.


Reviews: History and the Media, Writing Biography: Historians and Their Craft, Selected Writings: Volume 4, 1938–1940, Benjamin Now: Critical Encounters with ‘The Arcades Project’, Illustrating the Past in Early Modern England: The Representation of History in Printed Books, Shakespeare's Culture in Modern Performance, Shakespeare's Early History Plays: From Chronicle to Stage, Secret Shakespeare, Theatre and Religion: Lancastrian Shakespeare, Language and Politics in the Sixteenth-Century History Play, the Bible in English: Its History and Influence, John Selden: Measures of the Holy Commonwealth in Seventeenth-Century England, William Blake and the Impossible History of the 1790s, William Blake's Comic Vision, Rural Englands: Labouring Lives in the Nineteenth Century, Victorian Shakespeare, 2 Vols, Vol. 1, Theatre, Drama and Performance; Vol. 2, Literature and Culture, Consumerism and American Girls' Literature, 1860–1940, Twentieth-Century Writing and the British Working Class, Psychoanalysis, Psychiatry and Modernist Literature, Postcolonial Animal Tale from Kipling to Coetzee, Shakespeare and the American NationCannadineDavid (ed.), History and the Media , Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, pp. vii + 175, £19.99.AmbrosiusLloyd E. (ed.), Writing Biography: Historians and their craft , University of Nebraska Press, 2004, pp. xiii + 166, £34.50.BenjaminWalter, Selected Writings: Volume 4, 1938–1940 , trans. JephcottEdmund, ed. EilandHoward and JenningsMichael W., Harvard University Press, 2003, pp. vi + 477, £26.50McLaughlinKevin and RosenPhilip (eds), Benjamin Now: Critical Encounters with ‘The Arcades Project‘ , Duke University Press, 2003, pp. 219, £10.50.KnappJames A., Illustrating the Past in Early Modern England: The Representation of History in Printed Books , Ashgate Publishing, 2003, pp. xvi + 274, £35.JonesMaria, Shakespeare's Culture in Modern Performance , Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. xii + 213, £45.Goy-BlanquetDominque, Shakespeare's Early History Plays: From Chronicle to Stage , Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. viii + 312, £63.WilsonRichard, Secret Shakespeare , Manchester University Press, 2004, pp. viii + 26, £15.99 pbDuttonRichard, FindlayAlison and WilsonRichard (eds), Theatre and Religion: Lancastrian Shakespeare , Manchester University Press, 2003, pp. xii + 267, £16.99 pb.CavanaghDermot, Language and Politics in the Sixteenth-Century History Play , Early Modern Literature in History, Palgrave, 2003, pp. x + 197, £45.DaniellDavid, The Bible in English: Its History and Influence , Yale University Press, 2003, pp. xx + 900. £29.95.BarbourReid, John Selden: Measures of the Holy Commonwealth in Seventeenth-Century England , University of Toronto Press, 2003, pp. x + 417, £42.MakdisiSaree, William Blake and the Impossible History of the 1790s , University of Chicago Press, 2003, pp. xviii + 394, $22 pbRawlinsonNick, William Blake's Comic Vision , Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. xiv + 292, £42.50.ReayBarry, Rural Englands: Labouring Lives in the Nineteenth Century , Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, 25 illustrations, 7 figs., pp. x + 274, £16.99 pb.MarshallGail and PooleAdrian (eds), Victorian Shakespeare , 2 vols, Vol. 1, Theatre, Drama and Performance; Vol. 2, Literature and Culture , Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. xv + 213 and pp. xiv + 228, £90.StoneleyPeter, Consumerism and American Girls' Literature, 1860–1940 , Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. x +167, £40.KirkJohn, Twentieth-Century Writing and the British Working Class , University of Wales Press, 2003, pp. 224, £35.ValentineKylie, Psychoanalysis, Psychiatry and Modernist Literature , Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. 224, £45.NymanJopi, Postcolonial Animal Tale from Kipling to Coetzee , New Delhi, Atlantic Publishers and Distributor, 2003, pp. vi + 176, Rupees 375.00SturgessKim C., Shakespeare and the American Nation , Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. x + 234, £45.

2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 74-96
Author(s):  
R.C. Richardson ◽  
David Watson ◽  
Gary Farnell ◽  
John N. King ◽  
M. J. Jardine ◽  
...  

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Χαρίκλεια Μαρίνη

This thesis contributes to discourses concerned with urban space and performancepractice. It identifies ways in which built environments become performative; how thebuilt environment performs meaning(s) within the urban context and how spatialpractices of contemporary performance engage with city-spaces. The programmingand order of urban space tends to fix meanings; increasingly regulated and singlepurposecity-spaces seem unable to react to informal or unplanned activities. However,this thesis suggests that urban space entails inherent opportunities for conceiving andpractising space otherwise and looks at a spatial spectrum – from leftover spaces toLondon’s landmarks. It analyses incomplete presences in the built environment andtheir unexpected (re)uses, which make urban space an arena of ideas, interaction andcreativity. It examines how spatial practices of performance, such as site-specificperformance, audio-walks and installations, inform our (re)thinking of space, itsmeaning and its re-appropriation. It argues that through performative concepts andactions, space manifests a changeable and dynamic quality, rather than motionlessness and inertia.The thesis involves an interdisciplinary approach employing geography, urban,architectural and performance studies. It looks at four types of built spaces that havebeen used for performance purposes; a disused warehouse at 21 Wapping Lane, theconverted power station housing the Tate Modern art gallery, the exterior of theNational Theatre’s building and the London district of Wapping. All of these sites areawaiting, or are undergoing, major alterations in their design or planning, involvingreconstruction and expansion, or total demolition. The uncertain future of these sitesand buildings, the inevitable decay of their material, and the temporality of the builtenvironment invite questions of architectural design and urban planning in terms ofperformance. The examination of these sites at this moment of change and thepotential impact of the redevelopment plans on city life make this research timely,since the thesis emphasises the imperative of re-defining concepts of space, planningstrategies, and design processes so as to imagine a less determinate, more creative urban space.


2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camila Moreno de Camargo

O presente artigo aborda aspectos relacionados à produção habitacional da modalidade “Entidades” do programa Minha Casa, Minha Vida, a partir de observações de campo. Pretende-se elaborar uma chave de leitura que destaque, no contexto de atendimento do programa federal mencionado, as entidades organizadoras e os diferentes graus de vinculação e relação que estabelecem com os movimentos de luta por moradias nacionais, a sociedade e o próprio Estado. Tais questões vêm se construindo e nos mostram certa urgência de análise e pesquisas mais aprofundadas, no sentido de avançar na discussão acerca da produção habitacional por meio da autogestão no Brasil, visto que, ainda que inexpressivo do ponto de vista quantitativo e em comparação com a produção mais massiva empreendida pelo mercado, ela nos revela uma série de transformações que vem redefinindo as relações sociais e a produção do espaço urbano contemporâneo. Palavras-chave: habitação de interesse social; Minha Casa, Minha Vida; entidades; movimentos sociais; política habitacional. Abstract: In response to the global economic crisis of 2009, the brazilian government launched the Minha Casa, Minha Vida – MCMV program, with the purpose of producing one million houses in the country. In its second phase, currently the program aims to produce another two million housing in the country. This production occurs by means partnership among actors at the various political, commercial, social and voluntary levels. In this context, this article aims to develop a new key for reading the entities responsible for organising the construction of the project contracted and the different degrees of attachment and relationship they establish with the national fight for housing movements, the society and the state itself, in the composition of demand and performance location. Such questions show some urgency in the analysis and further research for advancing in discussion about housing production through self-management in Brazil, it reveals a series of transformations that has been redefining social relations and production of contemporary urban space. Keywords: social interest housing; “Minha Casa, Minha Vida”; entities; social movements; housing policy.


1997 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-161
Author(s):  
Brian Martin

Roger Stevens has always been a visionary. His career began in real estate, where he gained national recognition for buying the Empire State Building for $51.5 million—at the time the highest price ever paid for one building—and selling it three years later for a ten-million dollar profit. As he expanded into theatre, he quickly became one of the nation's foremost producers on Broadway, producing more than 200 shows over the last half century, including West Side Story, A Man for All Seasons, Bus Stop, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Deathtrap, and Mary, Mary. He “discovered” playwrights such as Tom Stoppard, Peter Shaffer, and Terence Rattigan for New York audiences, and he has worked closely with others, already established, such as Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, Harold Pinter, Jean Giraudoux, and T.S. Eliot Three United States presidents have depended on Stevens for their arts and humanities policy, and the American theatrical community has benefitted from his intuitive vision.


Author(s):  
Nikola Von Merveldt

Artikelbeginn:[English title and abstract below] Am 1. April 1989 wird das Empire State Building von einem reichen Ölscheich gekauft, der es Stein für Stein, Stahlstrebe für Stahlstrebe, im Wüstensand wieder aufbauen lassen will. Der Schotte James Mac Killian reist von 1923–1925 in einem Heißluftballon um die Welt und berichtet davon. Und in den Fragmenten des Geographenvolks der Orbæ lassen sich versunkene Welten erahnen, die sich mutige Reisende erschlossen und dokumentiert haben. Irritiert mag man sich fragen, ob einem diese Fakten entgangen sind, oder ob David Macaulays Unbuilding (1980) fake news ist, Caroline Mac Killians Journey of the Zephyr (2010) eine Lüge und die beeindruckende Bildbandtrilogie von François Place, Atlas des géographes d’Orbæ (1996–2000), eine unverfrorene Fälschung. Oder sind alle drei ›einfach‹ Bilderbücher und somit ohnehin Fiktion, ja Kunst mit all den ihr zustehenden Freiheiten? Fictionality of the FactualReflections on the Poetics of Non-Fiction for Young Readers Drawing on recent research in narratology and theories of fiction, this article proposes ways of productively looking at non­fiction for children beyond the fact­fiction divide. The key to a differentiated analytical toolkit is the semantic distinction between the real and fictional content on the one hand – the question of referentiality – and the prag­matic difference between factual and fictional ways of presenting it on the other hand – whether it lays a claim or not to referential truthfulness on the discursive level. These categories, analysed according to a three­step model developed by Nickel­Bacon, Groeben and Schreier (2000), allow for a nuanced description of the many hybrid forms of non­fiction, especially information picture books. This article will present a typology of dif­ferent variations on the ›fictionality of the factual‹ and the ›factuality of the fictional‹ in current information books for young readers, and show that there is more fiction in non­fiction than is commonly assumed.


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