Embodiment and Materiality Seminar

emboiment materiality

Derek McCormack (School of Geography and the Environment) gave an engaging account of his work on atmospheres and affective spaces. Using examples as broad as Dalcroze Eurhythmics, performance spaces designed by Adolphe Appia, sports radio commentating, and art installations, his talk considered a number of questions such as the extent to which atmospheres exist in so far as they can be sensed; how atmospheres can be staged or choreographed; and the methodological issues of how to describe or report on the non-representational. The balloon is an object that represents both affective and gaseous atmospheres particularly elegantly, and Derek showed how its affordances have been put to use in the creation of atmospheres in a variety of settings, including eighteenth-century balloon launches, and art installations such as Andy Warhol’s Silver Clouds (1968–1969) and William Forsythe's Scattered Crowd (2002).



Embodiment and Materiality

Contact name: Emily Payne

Contact email: emily.payne@spc.ox.ac.uk

Audience: Open to all