The Performance of War Images

This paper addresses the use of the body in post-9/11 performances of Japanese performance company Gekidan Kaitaisha in correlation with the continuing War on Terror campaign, and the ‘culture of protest’ in theatrical performance. It focuses on the performative effect of certain images and events during the on-going War on Terror, and the way the use of a burqa, US military footage, and choreographic impact in Kaitaisha has responded/coincided with/signaled events. How do Kaitaisha go beyond the effect of the (un)spectacular image? What particular alternatives do their performances reflect?The conference was sponsored by A.D.S.A., the Department of Performance Studies, the School of Letters, Arts and Media, and the Faculty of Arts of the University of Sydeny

The perfect genie

Aiming and working toward a perfectly comfortable lifestyle for all, and for future generations, is an admirable and achievable pursuit. But it is unwise to become overly dependent on a highly polluting energy technology

Informal Labour, Local Citizens and the Tokyo Electric Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Crisis: Responses to Neoliberal Disaster Management

In Asia today, the grand ideologies of the past have lost their power over the popular imagination. Even in many of the region’s democracies, popular engagement in the political process faces profound challenges. Yet amidst this landscape of political disenchantment, groups of ordinary people across Asia are finding new ways to take control of their own lives, respond to threats to their physical and cultural survival, and build better futures. This collection of essays by prominent scholars and activists traces the rise of a quiet politics of survival from the villages of China to Japan’s Minamata and Fukushima, and from the street art of Seoul and Hong Kong to the illegal markets of North Korea. Introducing an innovative conceptual framework, New Worlds from Below shows how informal grassroots politics in Northeast Asia is generating new ideas and practices that have region-wide and global relevance

Immunities: Life in a Fukushima World

This article applies the concept of 'immunity' to different sectoral interests in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster ('3.11'). In this event, I argue that the social and biological sense of immunity, as described through two contemporary art works (one film and one theatre production) conflicts with the political, economic and security senses of immunity. It finds that, contrary to official policy to create plausible deniability while maximising profits for transnational interests, the immunity of particular areas of the commons are weakened to the cost of present and future generations