The Aesthetics of Applied Theatre's next annual conference "Playing Involuntarily – Shaping Subjectivity in a Theatrical Society" will be held on July 3rd and 4th at the Institute for Theatre Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, Grunewaldstraße 35, 12165 Berlin.

The 2nd Annual Conference of the ERC-Project The Aesthetics of Applied Theatre seeks to investigate the power of performative arts to shape and adjust subjects. The purpose is, on the one hand, to focus on the attempts of adjustment of theatre practices that enable processes of the emergence of subjectivity. On the other, it aims to explore the institutional mechanisms that impinge upon these processes. Drawing upon theatre work in places such as prisons, hospitals, schools or companies, we wish to debate what are the specific theatrical techniques applied to the work done with and on convicts, patients, students or employees and for what purposes. The question that arises, not least in the context of traditional artistic institutions, is how it is possible to conceive the relation between performativity and subjectivation as a means of organizing neocapitalist ways of life. The aim is to allow a meeting between different directions of a political, ethical and aesthetic critique of involuntary theatre.

Schedule

Friday, July 3rd:

15:00 … Introduction: Unfreiwillige Spiele (Matthias Warstat, Natascha Siouzouli)

Vollzug und Spektakel

15:30 … Copy – Gedanken zur ludischen Praxis des Nachahmens (Natascha Adamowsky)

16:15 … Check. Point. (Kristin Flade)

17:30 … Performative Zensur. Staatliche Verbots- und Verhinderungsaktionen in der Sowjekunion und in Russland (Sylvia Sasse)

18:15 … Bert Brecht udn Kurt Lewin – Zur Szene des Selbst-Vollzugs (Katja Rothe)

20:15 … Keynote: How to Queer a War Machine: Storytelling Up and the Vita Performativa (Jon McKenzie)

Saturday, July 4th

Terror der Institutionen?

10:30 … Die Krux mit dem Kreuz: Die Passionsspiele im Jugendgefängnis von Mexiko City (Janina Möbius)

11:15 … Forced Participation – Seminarschauspiel in der Personalentwicklung (Florian Evers / Fabian Lempa)

12:00 … Organisation als Kunst (Florian Malzacher)

Lunch Break

Szenen Theatraler Subjektivation

14:00 … Visio Thurkilli – Theater als Höllenstrafe (Michael Lorber)

14:45 … Übertragung zwischen Spiel und Ernst (Lilian Seuberling)

16:00 … 'Seelenreize' und 'Psychiaterie'. Formen szenischer Subjektivation im moral management um 1800 (Céline Kaiser)

16:45 … 'Das bin also Ich' – Paradoxien der Subjektidentität (Carl Hegemann)

Break

19:00 … Artist talk with Marianne Flotron

Admission free, no previous registration necessary. The conference will be held in German with the exception of Jon McKenzie's talk which will be in English.