ANÁLISIS RELACIÓN ACCESO A LABORATORIOS CERTIFICADOS 163

This thesis is divided up into three sections, which together develop and expand my conception of an ecological performance aesthetic for the bio-urban. In the first section (Chapter I:

The Bio-Urban), I identify a gap in performance and urban ecology and position the bio-

urban as a provocation to my theory of an aesthetic, drawing on ecomaterialism. This idea informs the practice I draw on throughout the research as well as my thinking about ‘nature’ and ecological relationships in a contemporary urban context. The next section (Chapter II:

Immersion, Chapter III: Dwelling, Chapter IV: Eco-Cosmopolitanism) will identify the key

motifs and characteristics of an ecological performance aesthetic, with each chapter based around a central concept. In the third section (Chapter V: A Non-Anthropocentric Theory), I will argue that an ecological performance aesthetic is non-anthropocentric, in terms of how agency is conceived, and how binary making practices and hierarchies of beings are resisted. The intersection of performance and ecology constitutes two large areas of research; therefore, in order to keep the trajectory of the thesis clear, I will be introducing key concepts and terms throughout the chapters as they come up, as well as brief reviews of relevant related texts. In this thesis, I draw on a number of performance examples to interrogate and extend my theorisation. More information about the context and details of the main performance

practices can be found in the appendices as referred to in the text. The key argument of each chapter is briefly outlined below.

Chapter I: The Bio-Urban

The city represents a critical gap in the field of performance and ecology as well as a critical landscape for ecological thinking. As the majority of the UK (and the world population) now live in urban areas, it is crucial that we begin to think of it as part of ‘nature’. Here, I will elaborate the concept that stimulates and provokes this enquiry: the bio-urban. My concept of the bio-urban stems from thinking about humans (and therefore the urban) as part of ‘nature’. The bio-urban addresses the rural bias in ecological thinking and writing (Harvey 1993b) and deconstructs reductive binaries between human/nature and urban/rural. After briefly tracing some the dominant theories of nature, I will suggest a reframing of the concept as the dynamic and vibrant living world which is constantly changing and evolving. The bio- urban is influenced by the concept of ecomaterialism, which I will introduce in this chapter, drawing particularly on Bennett (2010), Barad (2012), Latour (2004), Ingold (2012) and Alaimo (2010). Ecomaterialism, or the idea of agency and vibrancy of the more-than-human, conceives of all matter or material as being able to create ecological effects. The city or urban environment is therefore considered part of ‘nature’, alive with ecological vibrancy, as much as any rural environment. This chapter will consider how site-based performances in urban settings may communicate, mediate or re-think concepts of ‘nature’, towards a conception of the bio-urban, considered in relation to my practice-based experiment The Trans-Plantable

Living Room (2013). Within my theorisation of an ecological performance aesthetic, I am

particularly interested in foregrounding urban ecology.

Chapter II: Immersion

This chapter will consider the way in which material engagement with the living environment through the senses may reveal, reflect or critique ecological relationships. Starting with eco- phenomenology, I will explore the way May’s (2005b) conception of ecological performance acts as a ‘space apart’ with temporal and material implications. I will then consider the way in which Cless’ concept of phenomenological materialism applies to Nutshell’s Allotment (2011–12) and Gad Weil’s La Grande Moisson (1990). The way space is conceived within ecological phenomenology will be explored as a dialogue between David Abram and Husserl. Merleau-Ponty’s (1962) embodiment and immersive environmental aesthetics will be considered to support my argument that active engagement with the ecologically-material world, framed by performance, can reveal ecological relationships. Active participation in the environment will be critiqued from the point of view of Kershaw (2007) through examples of practice including NVA’s Speed of Light (2012) and Earthrise Repair Shop Meadow Meander (2011–14). Taking Arbonauts’ Biped’s Monitor (2012) as an example, I will contend that ecological relationships can be revealed through performance which in turn work to foster a recognition of the vibrancy of the material world within an urban context. The immersive

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form of the performance works to collapse separations between human and nature, as well as nature and the urban environment.

Chapter III: Dwelling

This chapter will take up the question ‘how we live in the world’ within an ecological context. The idea of home is central to ecological discourse as the Greek root of ‘eco’ is oikos, meaning home or dwelling place, and can be extended to include the earth as home. Here, I will explore the way in which ecological performance assumes a view (or views) of the world and home. I consider Fevered Sleep’s Above Me the Wide Blue Sky (2013) and Trans-Plantable Living Room (2013) as critiquing performance of a home as it relates to a wider planetary home. Through post-Heideggerian thought, this chapter will also discuss the way performance may reflect, reveal and refract ideas of home and dwelling, particularly considering Kershaw’s Earthrise Repair Shop performance practices. Indigenous perspectives on home and dwelling will be considered as ways of critiquing western binaries between human and nonhuman as well as revealing the way colonialist oppression has had shared material effects on the environment and peoples.

Chapter IV: Eco-Cosmopolitanism

This chapter has a different structure than previous chapters in that the performance practice leads and motivates the theorisation. This is because of the way in which this chapter developed out of the pieces of performance practice. Originally conceived as bricolage, I came to realise that the practice motivated a different theoretical analysis. Rather than the multiple materialities suggested by bricolage, the tension between the local and the global in an ecological context emerged from the practice, which I identify as eco-cosmopolitan. Ecology is inherently bound up with place, community and global context: ecological performance responds to and engages with all of these relational conditions. In this chapter, the ecological effects of cosmopolitanism are considered and put it into dialogue with localism, through Heise’s (2008) conception of eco-cosmopolitanism. Ecological performance offers the potential to reframe and interrogate the relationship between the local and global, and heterogeneous ecological relationships and networks revealed in performance. Water represents a kind of cosmopolitanism, as it did in Message in a Bottle (2012), as water knows no geographical boundaries. Taking Ice Watch (2014) as an example of the way eco-cosmopolitanism is enacted in performance, I consider how the piece represents a dynamic dialogue between everyday life and the global-spanning ecological effects of climate change.

Chapter V: A Non-Anthropocentric Theory

In this chapter, I will make an argument for an ecological performance aesthetic as non- anthropocentric. I will suggest that in the current ecological age of the Anthropocene, a non- anthropocentric aesthetic of performance and theatre may help contribute to what Bennett (2010) calls an ‘ecological sensibility’. The geological agency of the human (Chakrabarty 2012)

requires a re-thinking towards a nuanced non-anthropocentrism, which does not dismiss the uniqueness of human agency, but rather acknowledges the range of agencies of the more-than- human and the complex interplay between them. After an explanation of agency, I suggest that one of the ways in which performance may enact a non-anthropocentrism is through ‘ecological anthropomorphism’. This is anthropomorphism that disrupts the anthropocentric hierarchy through recognition of the capacity for agency and action in the more-than-human and questions binary-making practices that position humans in opposition to nonhumans. Fevered Sleep’s It’s the Skin You’re Living In (2013) enacts an ecological anthropomorphism through the way it troubles distinctions between human, animal and climate. Drawing on Bennett and Latour, I consider worms as active agents capable of creating ecological effects in performance, through an analysis of my practice experiment The Celebrated Trees of Nashville,

Tennessee (2012). Then, Fevered Sleep’s The Weather Factory (2010) will be analysed as an

affective metaphor for the way in which human geophysical agency may be communicated through art works. I will finally suggest the neologism bioperformativity to convey the way in which the more-than-human performs within the frame of performance. I consider how the ecological agency of the more-than-human agents is framed as performance within specific artworks, exemplified through the trees of Beuys’ 7000 Oaks (1982).

To conclude, I will briefly draw out some of the tensions, paradoxes and performative contradictions in this research enquiry and suggest further routes of interrogation and scholarship.

Conclusion

Although the pairing of the concepts of performance and ecology is not without uncertainty and contradictions, I suggest that there is a productive way of interrogating the tensions between them that could lead to innovative ways of conceiving performance. As Giannachi and Stewart (2005) contend, the tension is what makes it an interesting field of study, ‘a hybrid and interdisciplinary subject, it is fascinating precisely because it is fraught with epistemological uncertainty and controversy, not least of all regarding the relation of the world of human culture to the wider natural world’ (19). Rather than focusing on what kinds of stories should be told on stage or how best to shrink theatre’s carbon footprint, my research aims to theorise how ecological relationships may be revealed and critiqued in site- based performance towards the articulation of an ecological performance aesthetic. In doing so, I characterise the concepts of immersion, dwelling and eco-cosmopolitanism as part of a non-anthropocentric ecological performance aesthetic for the bio-urban.

35 (2013) Trans-Plantable Living Room, Bute Park, Cardiff.

Chapter I