Visceral Future Lab: Call to Join Artistic Team

Visceral Future Lab: Participatory performance, 8. – 18th June 2023
PQ Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space

With Artist Tereza Stehlikova

I am looking to build a small artistic team to help me realise a project/performance for Prague Quadrennial 2023. Those interested should ideally be based in or near Prague.

Key words: participatory performance, senses, touch, embodied memory

Deadline for application: 12th February 2022

Project:

A simple pop-up lab will appear in the “wild” of the Holešovická tržnice area. Participants will be able to book an appointment, to receive a unique sensory experience by one of our “scientists”.

The idea of the lab is to offer a visceral sensory experience “in the wild”, while under supervision. These will be ordinary acts, reframed, to allow a heightened sensory experience. These experiences will not be random, but will be directly connected to the location and its history, based on our research.

The experiment will consist of blindfolded walks, exploring textures and surfaces, kinaesthesia and proprioception (using choreography of movement and utilising its emotional effects), and also using simple technological devices such as headphones.

Following the experience, we will gather feedback from our participants, in a form of short interview (if they are willing).

Developmental Phase: Skin Deep Territories

This phase will consist of a series of workshops on location in Holešovická tržnice, which will focus on exploring the area and its history while training our senses, in order to connect with the genius loci of this unique location. I am going to organise a series of sensory workshops, designed to unpeel the various layers of embodied memory of the area, while training and exploring all the senses.  

WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR

Performers/Guides
I am looking for people to take up the role of these “scientists/guides”.  They should have an experience of either theatre, performance or dance, or other embodied practice. You will need to be available between 8. – 18th June and also available for occasional group meetings and workshops in the period prior to the PQ dates. These will become more frequent in May.

Graphic Designers
To help us design maps for the guides, with a number of sensory routes.

Filmmakers/Cameramen
To help to document the developmental process of this project.

Sound designer
Sound is important in enhancing our tactile senses and evoke texture. I am looking for somebody who could help in gathering textural sounds from the location and be open to experimentation.

OTHER

If you feel like you have other multi-sensory skills that may be of interest, even if not mentioned here, please get in touch also. This project is very open and it will evolve collaboratively.

If you are interested to take part, please send a short biography and a short statement about which aspect of the project interests you and why and how it relates to your own practice.  

NOTE: While Prague based people are a preference, there is also a small space for those with existing experience of embodied art practice, to join during the festival. Please email me to discuss details.

Please email Tereza Stehlikova at stehlikova.tereza@vskk.cz

DEADLINE for application: 12th February 2023

Tereza Stehlikova is a Czech/UK artist and educator. She holds a PhD from the Royal College of Art, where she researched the tactile language of moving image. In the past she has been a senior lecturer at University of Westminster, as well as a PhD supervisor at the RCA. Stehlikova is engaged in a cross-disciplinary research, investigating how moving image can be used to communicate embodied experience, by exploring multi-sensory aesthetics and embodiment. She is a founder of Sensory Sites, an international collective based in London, generating collaborative exhibitions, installations and research projects that explore multi-sensory perception and bodily experience. She also launched an online arts journal/platform Tangible Territory, featuring essays and articles by established artists/authors from the world of arts, science, philosophy, all centred around the role our senses play in creating meaning in art and life. https://cinestheticfeasts.com/

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