Performance Research Volume 20 Issue 2
On Anthropomorphism
Issue editors: Richard Allen and Shaun May
ISSN: 1352-8165 (2015) 20:2
On Anthropomorphism concerns itself with performances and artworks that explore the complex of interesting and mutually contradictory ideas located under the umbrella term, ‘anthropomorphism’. On the one hand, it is used to refer to something that resembles a human, and on the other hand it refers to our natural tendency to read human characteristics in the non-human object or animal. Moreover, an interrogation of the concept of anthropomorphism, especially as it is found in contemporary performance, suggests that there is not a singular line dividing the human from the non-human but a vast terrain that houses the comical, the uncanny and the abject. The aim of this issue is to elucidate anthropomorphism in its multitude of aspects, thereby shedding light on discourses around object theatre and ecological performance that attempt to understand the more-than-human world in a way that goes beyond ‘mere’ anthropomorphism. Image: Landing in the Diorama © Tosh Chiang. Creative Commons Licence http://bit.ly/1F8CtP8
Encountering Anthropomorphism
Richard Allen, Shaun May
pp. 1 - 3
Death and the anthropomorphic life of objects in performance : Marina Abramović’s Nude with Skeleton and other animations
Jungmin Song
pp. 4 - 11
Ephemeral Animation [artist’s pages]
Nenagh Watson
pp. 12 - 17
CREW’s O_REX (2007) and Nicole Beutler’s Antigone (2012) : Composite bodies of resistance
Christel Stalpaert
pp. 18 - 23
A house of weather and a polar bear costume : Ecological anthropomorphism in the work of Fevered Sleep
Lisa Woynarski
pp. 24 - 32
Guddling About : Experiments in vital materialism with particular regard to water [artist’s pages]
Minty Donald
pp. 33 - 38
The critical aesthetics of performing objects – Kris Verdonck
Kristof Van Baarle
pp. 39 - 48
Annotating Room 14 of Mira Schendel at the Tate Modern : In sometey b In some they become the cloud [artist’s pages]
Penny Newell
pp. 49 - 52
Enmeshed bodies, impossible touch : The object-oriented world of Pina Bausch’s Café Müller
João Florêncio
pp. 53 - 59
The ‘uncanny valley’ and spectating animated objects
James R. Hamilton
pp. 60 - 69
Digital anthropomorphism : Performers avatars and chat-bots
Aneta Stojnić
pp. 70 - 77
‘Ceremonious ape!’ : Creaturely poetics and anthropomorphic acts
Joseph Anderton
pp. 78 - 88
Reflections on Dear Mick Jagger … [artist’s pages]
Ffion Jones
pp. 89 - 95
Animals and angels : A scene of abjection in Lush’s shop window in Regent Street
Catherine Rosario
pp. 96 - 101
Hiroshi Sugimoto and the photography of theatre
Kevin Riordan
pp. 102 - 111
Encountering the spectre of painting [artist’s pages]
James Fisher
pp. 112 - 117
Fifty years since Carolee Schneemann’s Meat Joy (1964) (review)
Harriet Curtis
pp. 118 - 120
Notes on Contributors
pp. 121 - 122
