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International Conference | 29 June - 03 July 2005 Tomlin: Liz | UK
area of practice: Performance form: a 40 minute presentation fusing extracts of live performance with related critical commentary and analysis ABSTRACT Does the ‘research’ in practice-as-research always have to exist in the methodologies and processes of the practice? Can it not also legitimately exist in the ideas and theories which are the foundations for the processes of the practice and the ‘output’ of the performance? Might a better term for this particular field of practice-as-research be practice-as-dissemination? If so, how might we seek to justify practice as dissemination in opposition or addition to conventional published outputs? What can practice do that publications can’t? How is the transfer of knowledge, ideas and theory, made different when mediated through practice as opposed to conventional academic publication? This presentation will focus on the conflict between the objects of knowledge and the ways of knowing which are imposed upon them. It is not concerned with an exploration of the ‘new’ embodied or experiental knowledges but rather seeks to find new ways to disseminate traditional academic knowledges within a post-structuralist and post-materialist context. It will explore practice as one form which may offer new ways by which theoretical knowledges can be constructed and disseminated. The presentation is based around a series of extracts from Point Blank’s current practice-as-research project and touring production Roses & Morphine. The piece itself is an exploration of ideas arising from the conflict between the post-structuralist premise which calls into question the ontological status of any given reality, focusing in particular on the unknowability of the past, and the continuing human need for such knowability in order to enable meaningful construction of identity in the present, and a secure basis for ethical judgement in the future. As the performers uncover traces of their own and others’ histories, crumbling and contaminated by fragments of conflicting versions of events and outright fictions, they struggle to make sense of the past through present analysis which leads to revisions of the memories themselves in a circular and never-ending search for the truth. They are joined in this presentation by the writer/researcher who works alongside them, excavating fragments of the original academic research which underpins the production. The presentation aims, not to explain or directly analyse the practice through such commentary, but rather to demonstrate three modes of dissemination of a single research imperative: 1. performance 2. critical analysis 3. a combination of the two. Such a framework is designed to instigate debate about the pragmatic, political and esoteric implications of a researcher’s chosen mode(s) of dissemination in the field of practice-as-research in general, as well as in relation, in this instance, to the fundamental questions the piece is asking about the ideological implications of post-structuralist scepticism. Contact Details Liz Tomlin Point Blank Theatre Unit 2, 67 Earl St Sheffield S1 4PY tel: 0114 249 3651 fax: 0114 249 3655
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