how is something so calm, so chaotic?

How is something so calm, so chaotic? is part of Matthew Pope’s School of Arts and Humanities Honours research project at Edith Cowan University. The performance invites the viewers to interact and experience the artwork, artist and performance space. The performance explores the relationship between the artist and audience, how this is formed and influenced consciously and subconsciously. His body will act as both subject and object, investigating how it fluctuates between these forms, due to the influence and result of the environment, audience and artists’ state.

This participatory performance work is the result and final performance of Pope’s Honours Research Project with accompanying thesis: Not Particularly, he seemed calm and absent. - Participatory Performance and Embodied Cognition.

Below is the Abstract from Pope’s thesis:

This honours research project is a practice-led investigation into interactions with an audience during participatory performances. The research explores how and when these engagements surface as well as how they are embodied within the participant and performer. Two participatory performances were produced and provided the primary sources of data collection. Using a phenomenological approach to examine the outcomes of the performances, the theory of embodied cognition was adopted to determine how the choice of actions and behaviors were constructed. Using these theoretical perspectives, the analysis of the data provides a further understanding of how the components of a participatory performance influences the audience’s choice of interactions, as well as how these are then embodied within both the artist and the other beings within the space. A final reworking of the performance will be presented to apply the outcomes of the research and to further assist my creative praxis.

Images Pre-Performance.

Images During Performance.

IMAGES POST-PERFORMANCE