NXT Encounters are live online dialogues between invited guests, in a time of a global pandemic that forces us to build community in new ways and to imagine a future that does not merely reproduce the status quo. Because the last thing to do, is to do everything we did before. In this session with literary scholar Annja Neumann and historian / musician Melissa Van Drie.
The disruption of everyday life during the coronavirus health crisis has brought attention to how our movements in the world, with other beings and within spaces, shape us. New entanglements have emerged and multi-sensory modes of interaction have been reconfigured. We’ll talk about how human lives are transformed by encounters in specific physical architectures by exploring physical, material-discursive and emotional rhythms of contact. How can taking notice of what one used to do and what one can do now help us reflect on our personal and artistic practices?
The dialogue was streamed live on NXT’s Facebook page.
Watch and listen to the encounter here:
Annja Neumann – a literary scholar, dramaturge and cultural anthropologist. Specialised in interdisciplinary and arts-based research at the intersection of the Critical Medical Humanities, Digital Humanities, Theatre and Performance Studies. Neumann likes to bring a text or bodily practice to life in the very institutional spaces which constitute its meaning. Neumann currently focuses on the theatricality of medical spaces, particularly on how bodies materialize in fictive and real medical settings. This includes developing a ‘Staging Medicine’ augmented reality application and directing a mixed reality drama for my ‘Theatres of Medicine’ project (Cambridge).
Melissa Van Drie – a historian, arts practitioner and musician. Working across the disciplines of theatre, music and the history of science and technology, she writes cultural histories of sound and the senses. Her research practices include historical re-enactments, performance-lectures and multi-sensory installations. She has published on intersections of early mediatized listening practices, sound reproduction technologies, and live theatre—notably on the théâtrophone—in 19th century France (Sorbonne; Cambridge). Her current “Sounds Delicious Project” based at the University of Copenhagen considers sound in food.
The framing of these encounters is inspired by French philosopher Bruno Latour and his recent call to arms, stating that ‘the last thing to do, is to do everything we did before’, inviting us in this time of restrictions and introversion, to imagine ‘gestes-barrières’ (gestures from barriers); that which will allow us to not return to business as usual after the corona virus.
Listen to NXT Encounters #1 WITHDRAWAL – BREATHING – PREFIGURING with Marcella Arruda and Kristine Samson
Listen to NXT Encounters #2 THE BODY COLLECTIVE AND THE COLLECTIVE AS A BODY with Klara Utke Acs and Sindri Runudde
Listen to NXT Encounters #3 RHYTHMS OF CONTACT with Annja Neumann and Melissa Van Drie
Listen to NXT Encounter #4 SORG with Carsten Jensen and CHIMERA (Esther Michelsen Kjeldahl, Adrian Preisler, Madeleine Kate McGowan)
Listen to NXT Encounter #5 CARING FROM A DISTANCE with Inga Gerner Nielsen and Anne-Gisèle Nimbona