What is attention? Can performance and philosophy (or indeed, performance philosophy) produce ‘counter-forms of attention’ (Crary) or operate as an ‘education of attention’ (Bergson) in the context of the contemporary attention economy? In this talk, Laura will be working towards a notion of ‘thought’ as neither exclusively the province of the mind nor of philosophy (as a metaphysical kind of vision or knowledge), but an embodied perceptual practice available to all.
what_now 2014 was presented by Independent Dance in association with Siobhan Davies Dance.
Laura Cull is Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies and Director of Postgraduate Research for the School of Arts at the University of Surrey, UK. She is author of the book, Theatres of Immanence: Deleuze and the Ethics of Performance (Palgrave, 2012), editor of Deleuze and Performance (Edinburgh University Press, 2009) and co-editor with Will Daddario of Manifesto Now! Instructions for Performance, Philosophy, Politics (Intellect, 2013). Laura is a founding core convener of the professional association Performance Philosophy and a co-editor of the Performance Philosophy book series for Palgrave Macmillan.
Bio as published in 2014.
Independent Dance’s series of WHAT festivals was initiated by co-director Gill Clarke in 2009. It was a platform for invited artist-curators to ask questions about and through dance.
what_now 2014 was presented as a public residency, taking as its starting point the suggestion that artists need to construct new conditions for the realisation of community. It was a festival of processes and activities, and addressed new forms of social organisation and production.
Four public talks addressed the thinking body and its potential in and for movement. The speakers were invited to talk about how attention operates, and how we direct ourselves and our thinking as full-blooded humans, with varied approaches including philosophy, human geography, education and performance. Each public talk was followed by a discussion, which was also filmed, and placed on this page.
