AMP42218 Performativity 3. Ethics (Spring 2024)

The course is connected to the following study programs

Mandatory course in Master in Performance (120 ECTS)

Absolute requirements

Passed all exams in 3rd semester.

Lecture Semester

4th semester (spring)

The student's learning outcomes after completing the course

The student will:

• have competence in reflecting on ethical questions and situations emerging from collaborative processes and audience encounters, and how this affects their aesthetic choices, artistic and documentation methods.

• have the consciousness to consider and question their use of resources and the impact of their work within their methods and artistic practices.

• gain awareness and competence in basic theories, discourses and debates related to performance and ethical relations in contemporary issues: i.e. embodiment, power and identity, diaspora, cultural context and queer/post-colonial/anti-colonial theory.

• gain competence in describing the values and ethics of their practice, both in terms of collaborative creation processes and audience relations.

• gain competence in developing their own leadership skills through discussion and debate about methods, and reflect on modes of project development and the impact of project planning on their work and working environment

Content

Performativity 3: Ethics will engage the students in relevant contemporary ethical philosophies and debates in the arts: around e.g. relation, use, participation, and presence. The aim is to question and challenge each student's artistic practice from the perspective of slippery issues such as identity, sovereignty, spatial relations, power, language and embodiment. Inside this process, modes of documentation and editing of one's work will be explored and discussed.

In Performativity 3, the practice of critical reflection will be continually tutored and developed through a public seminar in collaboration, whenever possible, with a partner institution, (i.e. Black Box Teater, Oslo) involving peers and other experts from the field, organized in collaboration between the student group and their advisors, where students process their ongoing Master project research through public dialogue and presentations, critically shaping their reflection through discussion. Their perspectives will be challenged in this seminar through a series of lectures and conversations with staff and specialists in the professional field of from various disciplines and practices both within and outside the arts. The content is aimed at raising questions within the student group about their art practice and its reliance on human and material relations: where individual assumptions, values and practices of power have critical impact across cultural and aesthetic borders, and how their choice of documentation of live works communicate their ideas.

Forms of teaching and learning

A series of lectures and conversations with invited lecturers and guests in the co-curated public seminar. Tutored group meetings where students will engage in critical discussion on the role of the 'live' in their performative methods; how to address ethical questions connected to audience relations, participation, collaboration, sustainability, space, materials, identity, diaspora and questions of sovereignty. A syllabus will be given by the responsible staff member, and the specifics of the course depends on self-study and self-arranged study groups with readings which relate topically to the study areas of the student group. The course will end with the public seminar where each student presents their research questions, challenges and modes of documentation their ongoing Master projects.

Workload

Approx. 300 hours

Coursework requirements - conditions for taking the exam

Oral presentation of documented research in public critical reflection seminar, outlining the debates relevant to questions, problems, or ethical challenges in their own practice, and how defining a perspective on ethical relations has provoked their artistic practice, documentation methods and research direction.

An attendance of minimum 80 % is required.

Examination

Verbal examination
Duration: 20-30 minutes individual examination plus plenum discussion.

Assessment of student achievement of course's learning outcomes is accomplished by conclusion of the semester by structured discussion between the student, the student's advisor and one employee lecturer, based on the reflections emerging out of the active participation in critical discussions with peers, and the final oral presentation focusing on the ethical and material consequences of their artistic practice.

Uses verbal feedback. Uses the grade pass / fail.

Examiners

Student's supervisor and one lecturer who is a member of staff.

Conditions for resit/rescheduled exams

Failure to pass the exam in one or more courses will only be given one new exam attempt. New examination paper is formulated by programme coordinator in collaboration with the student's supervisor during the course of the semester's 3rd last week.

In continuation assessment, the programme coordinator must in addition to supervisor and staff teacher, who normally assess the student, appoint one additional employee teacher to this sensor array.

The programme coordinator, head of study and student must sign that new exam paper is announced and received.

A new course evaluation (continuation assessment) takes place during the last week of the semester.

Course evaluation

See the programme description.

Literature

The reading list is last updated October 23th, 2019.

References to current literature, video material, websites, theatre productions and exhibitions, art catalogues, film, music, art and theater criticism in the media and other relevant references are supplied in part by the Programme Coordinator and are partly the responsibility of the student to research independently under tutoring.

Recommended literature:

Braidotti, R. (2006) Transpositions. Cambridge, Malden: Polity Press.

Glowacka, D. & Boos, S. (eds.) (2002) Between Ethics and Aesthetics. Albany: State University of New York.

Grehan, H. (2009) Performance, Ethics and Spectatorship in a Global Age. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kuburovic´, B. (2011) Performance of Wit(h)Nessing: Trauma and Affect in Contemporary Live Art, PhD Thesis, Roehampton University.

Løgstrup, K.E.(1997) The Ethical Demand. Indiana: University of Notre Dame.

Ridout, N. (2009) Theatre & Ethics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Schneider, R. (2011) Performing Remains, Art and War in Times of Theatrical Reenactment. New York: Routledge.