Leader: DR. DOMINIC JOHNSON, Queen Mary University of London

This seminar will address representations of erotic and sexual intimacy in performance. Performance will be explored as a staging of forbidden or otherwise troubled intimacies, thinking through works that
figure intimacy between queers, intimacy with animals, and intimacy with children. Works for discussion may include Ron Athey and Lee Adam's Revisions of Excess event, Pier Paolo Pasolini's Porcile and Salo, Kira O'Reilly's Inthewrongplaceness, Tennessee Williams' Suddenly, Last Summer, and the photography of Slava Mogutin, Robert Mapplethorpe and Richard Kern.

In approaching these diverse performances of difficult intimacies, critical frameworks will be set up, deploying Emmanuel Levinas's idea of the infinite intimacy that is the epiphany of the face-to-face encounter; William Haver's imagining of "the pornographic life" lived within the proximate horror of intimate risk; and  Georges Bataille's writings on the threat of intimate interiors as a "scandalous eruption".  In exploring these varied cultural practitioners, odd contiguities, favourable mutations and unfamiliar critical intimacies may hopefully arise.

Ben Pimlott Lecture Theatre
Ben Pimlott Building, Goldsmiths
New Cross
SE14 6NW London
United Kingdom

Saturday, December 8, 2007 from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM (GMT)

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INTIMACY

INTIMACY is a three-day digital and live art programme made to elicit connectivity, induce interaction and provoke debate between cutting edge artists, performers, leading scholars, respected researchers, creative thinkers and local community. A culturally urgent series of events, INTIMACY is designed to address a diverse set of responses to the notion of ‘being intimate’ in contemporary performance and as such, in life. Framed as a forum for artists, scholars, community workers, performers, cultural practitioners, researchers and creative thinkers, INTIMACY will feature workshops, seminars, performances, and a 1-day symposium at Goldsmiths College, Laban, and the Albany during December 7th-9th, 2007. Featuring performances, workshops, seminars and a symposium, INTIMACY invites scholars, researchers, artists and audiences to enable the interrogation and creative exploration of formal, aesthetic and affective modes of performing intimacy now. INTIMACY is co-directed and co-produced by: Maria Chatzichristodoulou [aka maria x] PhD Researcher Goldsmiths Digital Studios, University of London; Sessional Lecturer Birkbeck FLL drp01mc@gold.ac.uk Rachel Zerihan PhD Researcher School of Arts, Roehampton University; Sessional Lecturer Brunel University. INTIMACY Board: * Prof. Johannes Birringer Chair in Drama and Performance Technologies, School of Arts, Brunel University of West London; Choreographer. * Hazel Gardiner Senior Project Manager AHRC ICT Methods Network. * Prof. Adrian Heathfield School of Arts, Roehampton University; Writer; Curator. * Prof. Janis Jefferies Artistic Director Goldsmiths Digital Studios, University of London; Director Constance Howard Centre in Textiles; Artist; Curator. * Gerald Lidstone Head of Drama Department, Goldsmiths University of London. INTIMACY is supported by: * AHRC ICT Methods Network * Goldsmiths University of London * Knowledge East * Trinity Laban * The Albany * Home