Catharsis, Space and Motivation in Unconventional Event Performance Venues

The concept of catharsis, widely exploited in literature, music, drama and psychoanalysis remains still an untouched area in the event industry. Man and space have always defined one another. From the caves to the sky scrapers, humankind's evolution could be detected through its relation to the habitat and the way it has constructed the habitat, but it also defined the way society evolved. By understanding why individuals attend performances in unconventional spaces, our understanding of the events market, the industry, but also the human mind is enhanced. Therefore the purpose of this study is to demonstrate that space generates catharsis. By reviewing literature and undertaking primary research, the author developed a new framework by which motivations to attend events in unconventional spaces could be understood. Findings suggest that individuals prefer the genre of unconventional event venues because it portrays a holistic experience of calmness, serenity, relaxation and freedom of speech

Staging and Citing Gendered Meanings: A practice-based study of representational strategies in live and mediated performance

My argument is that gender visibility in live and mediated performance can be enhanced by the use of the dramaturgical toolkit. The thesis as a whole offers a body of work and a method for recontextualising that work, and for reframing it in multimedia format. The visual and written texts on the DVD-Rom give equal weight to the performance and written research comprising this submission. Building upon that set of materials and meanings, but leaving deliberate gaps and spaces for debate and interpretation between them as well, I have attempted to offer a useful but also a flexible toolkit for use by future practitioners and scholars. Method: Taking as my case study Di's Midsummer Night Party, a site-based devised performance (this collaboration in 2000 was created with a scenographer, five professional actors and 20 extras, performed over five nights in an 18th-century house), I design and theorise a dramaturgical toolkit. The theoretical base is developed from established theoretical concerns, feminist performance theory and social semiotics to analyse an original contemporary performance work. Original contribution: The dramaturgical toolkit is designed to be used by artists, students and academics. My analytical tool is being used in teaching and is valuable to others who want to teach/research gender representation in live and mediated performance. Tests during development and subsequently have taken place with performance design and fashion students at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, where the kit encouraged the articulation and analysis of student work. The dramaturgical toolkit helps the facilitator to push students towards articulation and analysis of "bite-sized" bits that are distilled enough to be clear, and therefore useful for making and analysing performance. This process of distillation helps artists and students to focus down and to reach new levels of understanding

Bright Spots Leadership in the Pacific Northwest

The operating environment for nonprofit cultural organizations today is daunting. Demographic shifts, changing participation patterns, evolving technology, increased competition for consumer attention, rising costs of doing business, shifts in the philanthropic sector and public funding, and the lingering recession form a stew of change and uncertainty. Every cultural organization is experiencing a combination of these shifts, each in its own way. Yet, while some organizations are struggling in this changing context, others are managing to stay healthy and dynamic while operating under the same conditions as their peers. These groups are observable exceptions, recognized by their peers as achieving success outside the norm in their artistic program, their engagement of community, and/or their financial stability. These are the "bright spots" of the cultural sector.Who are they? What are they doing differently? What can we learn by studying their behavior?To explore these questions, the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation asked Helicon Collaborative to conduct a study of cultural groups in the Pacific Northwest. The project had two goals: 1) to identify "bright spots," defined as cultural organizations that are successfully adapting to their changing circumstances without exceptional resources, and 2) to see if these organizations share characteristics or strategies that can be replicated by others

Designing for/from the Future

This thesis aims to introduce new methods within the field of experience design, an emergent interdisciplinary design discipline, using these methods as tools for debate and for the communication of new design concepts. An important part of the methods come from trendspotting practice and future studies methodology. The backbone of the final project is a “meta-method” which incorporates common methods surveyed so far: the “for/from” method. The first part of the “for/from” method is about designing prototypes and creating fictional narratives to project current trends into the future, the second part is perhaps less structured, but more ambitious, carrying fictional futures to the daily lives, to test and evaluate the scenarios created. Staging experiments and experiences around these proposed methodologies and testing the concepts through workshops forms the core of the proposed design practice. Since the domain of futures thinking is not populated by designers, it is of special importance to me as how designers might find a place in such interdisciplinary teams and how the organizational levels of these so-called complex experiential structures could allow designers to participate. I argue that experience designers not only design customer experiences to please and aestheticize products but they have the power to change people’s (rather than customers’) opinions, using the same tools the field of marketing and exhibition design offers them

The Artist as a Producer and Entrepreneur

This project dives deep into the processes of music production and distribution, and it aims to explore how the state of the art tools and technologies can support an independent artist like me to successfully manage both of them. As musicians, our responsibility often ends when the music gets created, but what happens if we want to take the lead as producers of ourselves and utilize all our technological resources to obtain the desired sounds? If we want to be entrepreneurial and upload our music on digital stores, how can we be sure that our music is protected, or be aware of all the royalties that it is generating once released and of how to collect them as independent artists? These, among other questions, are the treated themes of this project, that was practically executed through the production of five songs; to fulfil the purpose of the project, one of the songs was entirely produced by me using all the knowledge and experience acquired during my year at Berklee Valencia, and another one was registered with a performing rights organization, released, marketed and promoted by me, with the knowledge acquired through research, and through the attendance of webinars and workshops. I truly believe that the achievements of this project can support my future artistic career, and that they might be of interest to other artists that want to gain more responsibility in the production process of their work or in managing their own music business.https://remix.berklee.edu/graduate-studies-contemporary-performance/1205/thumbnail.jp

UNCONVENTIONAL WARFARE LOGISTICS: UTILIZING NETWORKED NON-STANDARD APPROACHES AND DECEPTION

Throughout history, many military campaigns, conventional or irregular, have failed when they were not well supported logistically. “ARSOF 2022,” written by Charles Cleveland and appearing in the spring 2013 issue of Special Warfare, states that United States Army Special Operations Forces will be the lead component to conduct unconventional warfare (UW) in the future. However, a 2013 RAND Arroyo Center study, Non-Standard Logistics Support for Unconventional Warfare: Sourcebook for Planning and Capability Development, written by Matthew E Boyer et al. on “non-standard logistics” identified significant gaps in existing doctrine, authorities, training, and other areas that support such operations. While providing recommendations, RAND did not provide specific solutions to the shortcomings. This thesis proposes a general model to conduct UW resupply, and operationalizes this model in the form of a UW logistics planning and execution cycle. The six-step cycle (RANDOM), begins with receipt of mission (R). Next, a multi-categorical UW logistics feasibility assessment (A) occurs. Following this assessment, a non-standard (N) resupply approach is chosen, and a supporting military deception plan (D) is incorporated into the approach. The resupply operation (O) is then executed, and feedback from various sources allows modifications (M) and improvements to the cycle for future resupply operations. This thesis concludes with recommendations for leaders and planners alike and offers a solution to the current lack of existing doctrine surrounding this topic.Major, United States ArmyApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Alternative activities during a pandemic period in the sphere of cultural institutions

Taking a broad-based view on the global health crisis, this paper examines the feasibility of cultural sector reaction on radical changes on an unexpected situation with an unknown deadline. The paper summarized the theoretical basis in public relations, presented by Slovak, Czech and foreign authors that explain the meaning, aims and value of PR in the cultural sector. It refers to three basic goals of PR - building an image, routine publicity and crisis PR. The author emphasizes on signification settings of effective communicative tools in new circumstances between cultural organizations and audiences. The aim of this paper is to analyze, how organizations in the cultural sector in Slovakia use available tools to sustain existing audiences and at the same time how to attract new target groups by digital PR tools during the pandemic period. The objects are examined in the paper - theatres, galleries, and philharmonic orchestra in Slovakia. The methodology of this study will be addressed through analytical study. This will be revealed through discussion, investigation, analysis that can be detected through detailed content interrogation of the objects, elements and structure of the content of this study. The content of this article is intended for other cultural organizations that strategically plan their activities in digital form in the future

Plausible Expositions with Possible Expeditions

Influenced by video games and cinema, in this body of work, Plausible Expositions with Possible Expeditions, I use objects to create scenarios that suggest a narrative. The scenes are then photographed and displayed through cathode-ray tube televisions and viewers use their own knowledge and ideas about the objects to create that narrative. Each of these objects has is own data set, and the most common have a universal data set—information surrounding the object that is widely recognized, much like how a crowbar is commonly associated with crime. Similar to playing a video game, an algorithm is used when viewing my work (data) + their knowledge (data sets) = narrative (new data). When this algorithm is applied, my work promotes active viewing as opposed to passive observation