Performance in a Posthuman Age, Sunday February 12

Dr. Seda İlter - Ecodramaturgy: Theater and Climate Change What is ecodramaturgy and how does ecodramaturgical thinking/practice can resist dominant anthropocentric modes of representation? This talk considers how theatre and performance have engaged with ecological thinking, and embodied, presented, and responded to climate crisis. We will discuss the ways in which theatre and performance can problematise dominant anthropocentric modes of representation and reveal the inequalities that white environmentalism has intensified. We will explore the idea and practice of ecodramaturgies as an intersectional one and consider ecodramaturgical thinking in terms of race, class, gender, social mobility, etc. Biography Dr. Seda Ilter is a senior lecturer in Theatre and Performance Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London. She is the Programme Director for MA Dramaturgy. Her research interests include theoretical and aesthetic implications of technology and media culture in theatre, dramaturgy and new writing. Seda is also interested in translating and directing. She directed Tim Crouch’s The Author in Istanbul (2015). Seda’s monograph Mediatized Dramaturgy: Evolution of Playtexts in the Media Age was published by Bloomsbury in August, 2021. https://www.bbk.ac.uk/our-staff/profi... Dr. Mariza Dima - Building blocks towards affective Mixed Reality experiences This talk introduces a theoretical framework for creating digitally mediated immersive experiences using Mixed Reality smart glasses. Mariza will draw on her work with dramaturgical elements and technology development in heritage sites (Sutton House Stories, Mixed Reality Heritage Performance), and on a collaborative project that borrows from the transformative power of Ceremonial Magick and games design to build a framework for MR experiences, to distil design considerations that create an affective story-living experience for audiences. Biography Mariza is a Senior Lecturer in Games Design. She specialises in User Experience and User Interface design for developing meaningful and engaging interactions particularly using mobile, AR and haptic technologies. She has worked between academia and the creative industries as an interaction designer and creative technologist in R&D projects combining engineering and design approaches grounded on theoretical contexts of narrative, affective dramaturgy, and audience/player engagement. A keen knowledge hunter, she is often inspired by and experiments playfully with perspectives from different fields that could offer a useful alternative lens on user experience design and then turns them into a tool for designing engaging experiences. Her design approach is holistic and experiential where the designer embeds and immerses herself in a collaborative design process and views it as an educational and transformative experience rather than participating in it as a design expert. She also consults on strategies for devising and developing digital projects and user interactions in the creative industries and has expertise in design methods for collaboration and co-creation. https://www.brunel.ac.uk/people/mariz... Performance in a Posthuman Age and The Circus of Freaks is the second research project of digitalLABperformans. The project posits the theories of ecocriticism and ecofeminism in the context of posthuman and focuses on the intersection of these theories and theatre and performance art. The project is supported by the British Council Creative Collaborations Grant Program and started with a four-month dramaturgy laboratory in November 2022, will share the outputs of the laboratory process with the public through seminars and open rehearsals in January and February. Two open rehearsal presentations which include dramaturgy laboratory outputs and eight different seminars will be shared with the audience within the scope of the project, which is conducted with the partnership of Şule Ateş (Dijitallabperformans) and Seda İlter (Birkbeck Center for Contemporary Theater). The physical activities of the program will be held in Salt Galata as part of Salt's Open Rehearsals program.