Performing Embodiment

The aim of the symposium is to explore the concept of reduction primarily from a phenomenological perspective, as a movement towards the cornerstones of lived experience, as an attempt to grasp the primary encounter between self and world through the senses, and as an articulation of the link between embodied experience and knowledge.

Phenomenological reduction is not merely a theoretical concept but a practice or exercise. As developed by Edmund Husserl, phenomenology focuses on the operations performed by ‘living bodies’ in the most concrete and precise way, it is an ‘embodied approach to the construction of meaning’ (Susan Kozel 2007). Far from being just a theory resorting to reflection and analysis, or a merely operational method, phenomenology constantly integrates the intellect with sensory experience and is essentially performative. If the performative describes those actions in which one needs to figure out what one is doing whilst doing it, then phenomenological reduction is a performative approach to knowledge, an exercise of thought.

‘Practices of reduction’ refers to the idea of doing, of a poietic aspect through which different means approximate the embodied experience of the world. The symposium will thus focus on the possibilities that different means of expression (such as literature, dance, and music) afford in conveying and producingembodied experiences and will address the intersections of these forms of expression with the different technologies that make them possible nowadays, especially digital and AR technologies.

The first day of the symposium will see the opening of the exhibition Catalysts – Somatic Resonance. Using AI and mixed reality techniques, the installation will immerse the audience in a choreographed somatic experience.

In English

Thursday, 24 Feb 2022

15:00 Opening Remarks

15:30 – 16:00 Susan Kozel
Phenomenologies of Affect

16:00 – 16:30 Emmanuel Alloa
Corpus Redux – or: My Body Does not Belong to Me

16:30 – 17:00 Discussion

17:00 Coffee break

17:30 – 18:30 Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir
Closed Workshop

18:30 Coffee break

19:30 Opening of the Exhibition
Catalysts Somatic Resonance

Friday, 25 Feb 2022

16:00 – 16:30 Ursula Fanning
Performing and Embodying Authorship:
Case Studies from Italian Women’s Autobiographical Writings

16:30 – 17:00  Jennifer Yusin (online)
Inventions of Body: Space, Subjectivity, and Joy

17:00 Coffee break

17:30 – 18:00 Johanna Oksala (online)
Phenomenology as Social Critique: Rethinking the Reduction

18:00 – 18:30 Dorothea Olkowski (online)
Dancing Tango. The Realm of Appearances

18:30 Discussion

How to attend

• Registration opens on 1 February 2022.
• To join the event in-person at ICI Berlin or via Zoom, please submit your reservation request, using the form below. The number of participants at the ICI Berlin is limited.

Organized by

Alberica Bazzoni and Federica Buongiorno