Against Illustration: Falling Bodies - Seen and Unseen Presentation at Alternative Dramaturgies of the New Millennium - Performing Tangiers 2014 International Conference, Tangier/Tetouan, Morocco

Performing Tangiers 2014 International Conference Alternative Dramaturgies of the New Millennium - Performing Tangiers Title: Against Illustration: Falling Bodies - Seen and Unseen Prof Richard Gough Fellow IRC: Interweaving Performance Cultures Berlin In Pieter Breughel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (origin and attribution now disputed but the ‘original’ painted in 1560’s), one has to look carefully to see Icarus. The painting appears to be of the (then contemporary) Netherlands landscape, coast, sea and distant town; the sun is setting and in the foreground a farmer is plowing (oblivious to any event), in the centre a shepherd surrounded by his sheep looks up to the empty sky (the top left of the painting) and then finally one sees, close to a fisherman busy at shore, two legs flaying in the sea - the micro second before disappearance, almost comical and seemingly disproportionate to the sailing ship nearby; a fall to earth, a dive of calamitous proportion. Beginning from this image I wish to analyze the work of the contemporary dramaturge on a de-centred stage, where events are purposely and efficaciously positioned off-stage, offside, sub-score: where the imagination of the audience is engaged through devious and tangential strategies, where illustration is avoided and the world is made image (not word). But in seeing Icarus drown I think also of his father, Daedalus (no doubt still flying, more cautious in his trajectory, not seen in this painting), the master craftsman the builder of the labyrinth: through Daedalus I wish to reconsider the work of the dramaturge: Daedalus – ‘clever work’, a work of craft and precision, invention and mischief, and the dramaturge’s role as labyrinth maker. I wish to focus on two contemporary productions Ragnar Kjartansson’s Der Klang der Offenbarung des Gottlichen premiering in the Volksbuhne, Berlin in February 2014 and Punchdrunk’s The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable that opened in London in June 2013 (and which is still running). The Volksbuhne press release for Der Klang der Offenbarung des Gottlichen promises: ‘paintings without narrative, symphonic majesty without aspirations, nothing but essences and sensations, a music production – a symphony with tableaux vivants’. The production has in part been inspired by Hubert van Herkomer experiments in ‘pictorial music plays’ – again the Volksbuhne press release proclaims ‘It was Sir Hubert von Herrkomer’s artistic vision to dissociate theatre from drama: ceremony replaces text and narration, and song takes over spoken word’. I wish to revisit Hubert von Herrkomer (in the light of Robert Wilson) and consider extended dramaturgy as a dissociation of theatre from drama. The immensely popular London-based Punchdrunk create ‘immersive theatre’ where the audience is free to wander around vast spaces, conceived and constructed as sets - not as background for action but as detailed spaces to be inhabited and explored by the audiences as visitor/witness within a labyrinth. Performers also inhabit the spaces and one can construct narratives/meanings from shards of action encountered and woven together. The work is essentially choreographic and scenographic in vision and again begs questions of the role and function of dramaturgy. In this paper I will explore the creative strategies of the dramaturge detached from the word - beyond text, off script; the dramaturge not as an extension of literary advisor (with extended responsibilities and sensibilities) but as a maker of theatre with a visual poetics, a counterpoint to illustration, an organizer, a co-creator - a constructor of labyrinths for the imagination of the spectator. Richard Gough Berlin January 2014 Pieter Breughel (1560) Landscape with the Fall of Icaru

Facebook as Graveyard

This hand-made book identifies Facebook as an "autothanatographical" discourse, situating Facebook within a line of autothanatographic literature, beginning in the early 19th century. Citing deconstructive approaches to the face, I show the curious performative phenomenon by which the persona functions identically whether the Facebook account holder is dead or alive

Poems by W.S. Graham

Rupert Loydell and Dr. Kym Martindale, both poets, writers and lecturers, read from a range of poems by W.S. Graham. Graham, born in Scotland, moved to Cornwall in 1944 where he made many friends amongst the artistic community of St. Ives. Some of these friendships are mourned in his moving elegies for St Ives artists Roger Hilton, Bryan Wynter and Peter Lanyon

Here: A short story written in response to Colin Herd's poems for Hwearf journal's volume 1

This piece has been accepted for publication in the first volume of a new literary journal, Hwearf. This journal features collaborative writing, which is one of my research interest and part of my work as Managing Editor of FalWriting, our Department's website and literary magazine

A Voyage Round new territory: Collaborative poetry of (and in) the environment.

Artist William Daniell’s little known book A Voyage Round Great Britain (1813-1823), together with writer Richard Ayton. marks a fundamental watershed in histories of topography. His comprehensive and encyclopedic journey was in its day comparable (and in competition) with J M W Turner’s tours of England. The central theme is to connect this historical landscape project with contemporary methodologies to develop new ways of articulating relationships between identity and place. Specifically, this project will investigate the potential for the arts to inform current and future perceptions of environmental change. Our starting point for exploring this text further will be to visit the places first documented in Voyage in the South West which have been identified by the National Trust as being under significant threat of coastal erosion. Our project partners (artists, writers, and photographers) will consider how to make new work in response to these places. This network’s intention, therefore, is to revisit Voyage and map out its environmental significance and its narrative potential. It is our view that recognition of the transformative potential of stories, which are often articulated as journeys in terms of their narrative arc, can illuminate past endeavors as well as possible future selves

Juxebox Jarmusch: Jim at the Intersection of Music and Cinema

Feature article on music in the films of Jim Jarmusch

Social networks and the energy landscape: Toward a dynamic communications model

How can sustainable energy projects and organizations best use the strengths of digital and social media for public engagement, while managing associated risks? Considerations, practical strategies, and framework for engagement

ANTI Contemporary Art Festival 2017: Water

This curatorial practice research gathered international artists and performance makers with academics and actors working in the fields of public health policy, local and national governance and environmental and biological sciences to deliver a programme of publicly sited and participatory performance works and a seminar focused on the politics, poetics, aesthetics and ecological paradigms of water. Produced by ANTI Contemporary Art Festival (Kuopio, Finland) in partnership with the Finnish organisation Our Water Conscious Land, the research presented an interdisciplinary set of enquiries that, across creative and discursive frameworks examined how water, and the processes that enable and construct human interaction, are variously apprehended in terms of political and ecological crisis and danger (the human cost of waterborne migration, global warming etc.) and (allied to romanticism’s natural-world narratives and historical cultural/creative practices) as ‘life giving’ and the locus of ‘progress’, leisure, urbanism, civility and exploration. The performance works offered open engagement with, and reflection on, these propositions to a broad public audience of 11,000 people, with presentations including: Mark Požlep (SI), Island; Gwendoline Robin (BE), Cratère n°6899; Milla & Pertti Martikainen (FI), Global Flood; Anouska Samms & Sofia Pancucci-McQueen (UK): The Baths, Professor Minty Donald & Nick Millar (UK), Watermeets Kuopio; French & Mottershead (UK), Waterborne; River Lin (TW), Cleansing Service; Instant Dissidence (UK): Dancing With Strangers: From Calais to Finland; Alan Dunn & Jeff Young (UK), Music for the Williamson Tunnels: a collection of the sound of dripping water; Kaaos Company (FI), Pond. The international seminar Politics and Poetics of Water included presentations from programmed artists Milla Martikainen and Andrew Mottershead alongside: Antti Rautavaara, Senior Water Advisor, Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tiina Arpola & Antti Kotimaa, Savonia University of Applied Sciences & Games for Health, and Simo Pehkonen, Professor of Environmental and Biosciences, University of Eastern Finland

Poems from the Chellew Room

Selection of poetry by members of Falmouth Poetry Grou

In The Face of Death

In a collaborative project between Falmouth University and Augsburg University of Applied Sciences, entitled In the face of death. Communication students were asked to design a graphic system of symbols, creating meaningful and applied visual language to print, artifacts, digital and social media platforms. It focused on ideas and beliefs at the end of life, (the moment at which we die) and the consequences of that.   The project aims to create of a meaningful graphic system of symbols, which focus on ideas and beliefs at the end of life, (the moment at which we die). Using the four immortality narratives (as described in Stephen Cave’s Book Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How it Drives Civilization); Elixir, Resurrection, The Soul and Legacy, as vehicles to establish these systems