Performance Research Volume 26 Issue 7

On Air

Issue editors: Evelyn O'Malley & Chloe Preedy

ISSN: 1352-8165 (2022) 26:7

Air is a fundamental, life-sustaining aspect of existence. As a mediating element, air also shapes human modes of expression, including performance. Yet the air has not always received the attention it deserves, with its virtual omnipresence paradoxically making this mostly invisible element all too easy to forget. ‘On Air’ considers how performance might encourage more careful attunement to the air. Both breathing and environmental contexts of atmospheric exposure are central to its concerns, with pieces that consider diverse lived experiences and degrees of vulnerability to this element. Various contributors reflect on the specific implications of COVID-19 for understandings of and interactions with the air, while others discuss how performed responses and negotiations might foreground aerial embodiment. Above all, this issue invites reflection on what it might mean for us, as individuals and communities, to live -- and perform -- in the air.

 

READ THE EDITORIAL AND ARTICLE ABSTRACTS online

 

1 Editorial: On Air

EVELYN O'MALLEY AND CHLOE KATHLEEN PREEDY

 

7 Tribute to Mike Pearson: Non omnis moriar (Not all of me

will die)

RICHARD GOUGH AND MICHAEL SHANKS

 

23 Counter-attacking Pollution in Three Aerial Acts

WOOD ROBERDEAU

 

31 Performing Shared Atmospheres: Museo Aero Solar

SASHA ENGELMANN

 

38 To ‘Hold In-Common’ in the Midst of Clouds’ Drift

CATERINA ALBANO

 

44 Love Is in the Air? Notes from Wales on air vapour as

atmospheric affect

FRANCES WILLIAMS

 

52 Breath^work [Artist pages]

MEGHAN MOE BEITIKS AND KENYA (ROBINSON)

 

59 ‘This is My Life’: Managing breath in Kirsty Young’s and

Cumbernauld Theatre's LipSync (2019) and the COVID-19

pandemic

MAGGIE INCHLEY

 

67 Performances of Exposure and Ethical Spectatorship in

Hanna Cormick’s The Mermaid

MEGAN JOHNSON

 

73 Airpocalypse: Cycling as a performative art methodology for

investigating air pollution

CLARE NATTRESS

 

80 Air Time [Artist pages]

NIK WAKEFIELD AND SANDRA ZELLMER

 

86 Celestial Bodies in a Viscous Sky: Liquid Sky’s reshaping of

aerial space using lasers

KATE HOLMES

 

90 Conversations with an Invisible Partner

NATALIE ROWLAND

 

97 Walking in Air

EMMANUELLE WAECKERLÉ AND WILL MONTGOMERY

 

104 Addressable Volume

EDITH KOLLATH

 

111 Choreographing Breath and Air in Object Performances

S. R. MAY

 

117 On Air and in Breath: Atmospheric ethics of exposure

VERONICA JIMENEZ BORJA

 

127 Signposting the Anthropocene: Air care, poleotolerance and

the queering of ecosystem services

ALEXANDRA R. TOLAND, HARRIET RABE VON FROREICH

AND BEATE KÖRNER

 

136 Becoming with Wheat: Photosynthesis-Respiration

Collaborations [Artist pages]

AMANDA COUCH

 

142 Collective Breath: A conversation between artist Neville

Gabie and curator Jeni Walwin

NEVILLE GABIE AND JENI WALWIN

 

148 Playing with Then and Now: The liveness of breath

ISABEL STOWELL-KAPLAN

 

154 From an Atmospheric Point of View: Gustav Metzger in the

context of the air war

GABRIELLA DARIS

 

163 Breathing Air into the Archive: Preserving Otobong Nkanga’s

performance art

LOTTE BODE AND TIMMY DE LAET

 

171 On Processing the Texts in The Air Journey

LEENA ROUHIAINEN

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REVIEWS

177 Acoustics and Acousmatics across Species

LAURA CULL Ó MAOILEARCA

178 Stratifying the Air: A review of Scott Magelssen’s Performing

Flight

EVAN MORITZ

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180 Notes on Contributors