Performing sensation: sensory anthropology, performance and immersion beyond the eye

• Grant number: 15/15720-4
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Visiting Researcher Grant - International
• Start date: November 22, 2015
• End date: November 29, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts
• Principal Investigator: Patrícia Moran Fernandes
• Grantee: Patrícia Moran Fernandes
• Visiting researcher: Christopher Lloyd Salter
• Visiting researcher institution: Concordia University, Canada
• Host Institution: Escola de Comunicações e Artes (ECA). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This past January we were in Berlin attending the Transmedialle and CTM, a scientific and artistic meeting, when we met Chris Salter, an artist and scholar who is also the chair of New Media, Technology and the Senses at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. Salter is also the co-director of the Hexagram, a network focused on research in media-art, design, technology and digital culture based in Montreal. Most recently we have been researching about audiovisual performance. In 2013 we organized the Arranjos Experimentais: Cultura Numérica Audiovisual conference that included two meetings. The first one covered academic research practices at a seminar at ECA/USP and the other one, about art, included audiovisual performances at Paço das Artes and movie screenings at CINUSP Paulo Emílio. This seminar was a result of a research project under our coordination, sponsored by a FAPESP scholarship and titled Audiovisual em tempo real: Uma poética entre jogos óticos e de sentido. This research project also includes a new book, titled Cinemas Transversais that is already being edited by Iluminuras Publishing. All these actions have been developed at the LAICA research group, at ECA/USP, thanks to a FAPESP Grant for the Multiuser Lab infrastructure installation.As a starting point, Salter's visit to São Paulo will focus on his book Entangled: Technology and the Transformation of Performance (MIT Press, 2010) and his most current work. We research related fields and this has opened up new exchange possibilities. We invited him to teach a course at the Graduate Program in Medium and Audiovisual Processes (ECA/USP) to which we are currently connected as an ECA/USP professor. Salter indicated his availability to accept our initiation, however this would take place only in 2016 given to the many activities he has scheduled for the remaining of the current year. In order to strength ties this year, Salter is available to travel to São Paulo to join us at the Laboratório de Investigação e Crítica Audiovisual (LAICA) meeting. This meeting will allow us to bring our research projects closer and to present him the state of art of performance in Brazil. Salter's presence in São Paulo will be a great opportunity for an important increment in the studies about performances mediated by technologies and to engage in exchanges with our fellows at ECA/USP and PUC/SP. Along the small talk sessions to be helped during Salter's visit there will be exchanges also with local artists. Salter will also join the research network Besides the Screen. Since its first edition in London, in 2010, this meeting gathers researchers and research groups from all around the world that are dedicated to the study of the continuous transformation of audiovisual practices, cultures and technologies. This project starts from the investigation about processes and structures that exist " beyond the screens". Besides the Screen is currently supported by the United Kingdom Arts & Humanities Research Council to organize a series of theme-based events aiming to extend the dialogue among researchers and filmmakers in Latin America and to develop new local research projects. The presence of the North-American researcher, based in Canada, meets the objectives of the Multiuser Lab. (AU)