Posthuman Spiritualties in Contemporary Performance
- Submitting institution
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Liverpool Hope University
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- dSB11C
- Type
- A - Authored book
- DOI
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- Publisher
- Springer International Publishing
- ISBN
- 9783319897578
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- October
- Year of publication
- 2018
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- Yes
- Double-weighted statement
- A nine year research project (2009-2017) exploring technologies of the self, employed as artistic practices and processes. Brings together a set of different methodological perspectives – posthuman theories, performance studies, radical hermeneutics, religious studies and Michael Foucault’s notions of technologies of the self and apparatus – offers an in-depth examination of five performances/art-works to interpret contemporary spiritual experience through the interdisciplinary lens of art, science and religious studies.
The researcher entwines, in her analysis, several research methods which included long-term engagement with the technologies of the self (autoethnography); interviews with the artists; site-observations; and extensive archive research.
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The book Posthuman Spiritualities in Contemporary Performances provides an interpretative analysis of the notion of spirituality through the lenses of performance studies, religious studies, posthuman theories, radical hermeneutics and the notions of technologies of the self and apparatus as conceived by Michael Foucault. The publication examines five performances/artworks that by experimenting with technologies of the self and their affects on human perception within culture, provides unique opportunities for looking at spirituality as a contextualized, immanent and embodied experience.
The argument that embodied technologies are spatial practices grounded in materiality is the contribution that the author offers throughout a complex weaving of different research methods such as ethnography (interviews and site-observation), analytical autoethnography (participation and self- exploration with the practices) and archive research.
Each case study illuminates a specific aspect of spirituality, which is explored in its specificity avoiding their reduction into a final, conclusive whole. Although connections are drawn in the conclusive remarks, each technology and apparatus is contextualized as conducive of unique kinds of experiences that are particular in response to the cultural, social and religious background of each participant and the historical and geographical contexts wherein they are located.
The main contribution of the book is therefore its methodological, interdisciplinary perspective that allows for the development of a strategic set of methods for the analysis of artistic practices that due to their nature resists the gaze of the observer and therefore require both subjective engagement and rigorous analysis.
As there are an increasing number of artists and practitioners studying and experimenting with perception, ecology, spirituality and consciousness, this publication offers useful tools for navigating these slippery, interdisciplinary terrains of investigation.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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