Rock/Body: Performative interfaces between the geologic and the body
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Exeter
Department Name: Modern Languages French
Abstract
Rock/Body brings together researchers from the arts and humanities, social sciences, earth sciences, health, and practicing artists to investigate the performative interfaces between the geologic and the human body. It will move beyond the nature/culture divide geologically, by taking performing human bodies as both expressions of geological matter and forces, and prime sites of exposure and response to future changes in the dynamics of earth systems.
Departing from the tension presented in the film "Billy Elliot" between the hard-labouring landscape of coal extraction and the seemingly feminine or emasculating middle-class and urban world of ballet dancing, the research network will examine the ways in which the labouring bodies of miners and quarrymen and the performing bodies of dancers might, when thought together rather than separately, constitute privileged sites for exploring how geology and biology might converge in concrete human bodies and affect their forms of cultural production. Further, and given the way in which a universalising "humanity" has been uncritically posited as dominant geological agent in recent scientific discourse, the project will problematise such universalising conception of humanity and open it up to existing scholarly debates on race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability, and the ways in which differentiated bodies might be differently vulnerable to changing earth processes and possess different affordances when it comes to their ability to act as geological agents.
To adequately address those issues calls for collaborative cross- and inter-disciplinary approaches supported by scholars, scientists, and creative practitioners who are seldom given the chance to exchange knowledge and methodologies with one another in a non-hierarchical manner. Thus, through such reconceptualisation of rock/body interfaces, the network will address wider questions at the intersection of the sciences, the arts, and the humanities. Namely: racial, class, gender and sexual difference in relation to the role of humanity as both geologic subject and agent; the political aesthetics of mineral depletion as it is found in both rocks (mined and quarried) and human bodies exhausted by high-intensity labour and performance; and perception of time and the ways in which the aesthetic might be a privileged site from where richer experiences and knowledge of deep time might be drawn, and new human affiliations with the geologic, enacted.
At the centre of the network will be a series of three research seminars taking place in 2016 involving a total of 23 participants amongst scientists, humanities scholars, and creative practitioners. The first seminar on the theme of "Flesh/Minerality" will be held at the British Geological Survey in Nottingham. The second, on "Extraction/Exhaustion," and the third, on "Time/Duration," will both take place at the University of Exeter (one at the Cornwall campus; the other at the main Exeter campus).
Although limited to the participants, the seminars will also face outwards via press releases, a publicly accessible interactive website and Twitter feed where visitors will be able to comment and discuss the proceedings of each seminar, and a free public exhibition of works by participating artists, including a specially-commissioned site-specific performance piece created in response to the network. Further to that, wider academic audiences will also have access to the activities of the network through an article to be written by the PI and Co-I and submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, and a conference panel to be organised and proposed to a major international academic conference.
It is hoped that the network will foster the conditions for future inter- and cross-disciplinary research projects as well as new collaborations between academics and creative practitioners, thus extending beyond the duration of the grant.
Departing from the tension presented in the film "Billy Elliot" between the hard-labouring landscape of coal extraction and the seemingly feminine or emasculating middle-class and urban world of ballet dancing, the research network will examine the ways in which the labouring bodies of miners and quarrymen and the performing bodies of dancers might, when thought together rather than separately, constitute privileged sites for exploring how geology and biology might converge in concrete human bodies and affect their forms of cultural production. Further, and given the way in which a universalising "humanity" has been uncritically posited as dominant geological agent in recent scientific discourse, the project will problematise such universalising conception of humanity and open it up to existing scholarly debates on race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability, and the ways in which differentiated bodies might be differently vulnerable to changing earth processes and possess different affordances when it comes to their ability to act as geological agents.
To adequately address those issues calls for collaborative cross- and inter-disciplinary approaches supported by scholars, scientists, and creative practitioners who are seldom given the chance to exchange knowledge and methodologies with one another in a non-hierarchical manner. Thus, through such reconceptualisation of rock/body interfaces, the network will address wider questions at the intersection of the sciences, the arts, and the humanities. Namely: racial, class, gender and sexual difference in relation to the role of humanity as both geologic subject and agent; the political aesthetics of mineral depletion as it is found in both rocks (mined and quarried) and human bodies exhausted by high-intensity labour and performance; and perception of time and the ways in which the aesthetic might be a privileged site from where richer experiences and knowledge of deep time might be drawn, and new human affiliations with the geologic, enacted.
At the centre of the network will be a series of three research seminars taking place in 2016 involving a total of 23 participants amongst scientists, humanities scholars, and creative practitioners. The first seminar on the theme of "Flesh/Minerality" will be held at the British Geological Survey in Nottingham. The second, on "Extraction/Exhaustion," and the third, on "Time/Duration," will both take place at the University of Exeter (one at the Cornwall campus; the other at the main Exeter campus).
Although limited to the participants, the seminars will also face outwards via press releases, a publicly accessible interactive website and Twitter feed where visitors will be able to comment and discuss the proceedings of each seminar, and a free public exhibition of works by participating artists, including a specially-commissioned site-specific performance piece created in response to the network. Further to that, wider academic audiences will also have access to the activities of the network through an article to be written by the PI and Co-I and submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, and a conference panel to be organised and proposed to a major international academic conference.
It is hoped that the network will foster the conditions for future inter- and cross-disciplinary research projects as well as new collaborations between academics and creative practitioners, thus extending beyond the duration of the grant.
Planned Impact
Beyond its direct and indirect benefits to the academic community presented in the previous section, the network will positively impact the working practices of participating artists and contribute to an increase in public awareness of the ways in which the human body affects and is affected by the geologic. That is, through a reconceptualisation of rock/body interfaces around the composite themes of "Flesh/Minerality", "Extraction/Exhaustion", and "Time/Duration," new cross- and inter-disciplinary discussions will examine the different degrees of geological agency afforded to humans understood as bodies whose capacity to act and be acted upon is always dependent on differential embodiments of race, gender, sexuality, class, and ability. Such reconceptualisation will be crucial for bridging the gaps between the lived actuality of bodies and the perceived permanence of the geologic. Through that, it will contribute to the long-term impact of academic research at the level of environmental education and awareness, social cohesion, and policy-making.
More immediately, however, and thanks to the promotion of the network in the national, regional, and specialist media, and through the programming of a public exhibition and live performance, the network will benefit the following non-academic communities:
- creative practitioners (through participation in the seminars, visits to British Geological Survey and Trenoweth quarry, participation in exhibition, and commission of new performance piece);
- the local community (through attending the public exhibition);
- the general public (through press releases detailing the context, concerns, and aims of the network as well as its creative outputs).
The artists and curators involved will benefit from the activities by being given the opportunity to enter into productive dialogue with scientists and humanities scholars. Such dialogue will not only be able to influence their creative process in future works but will also directly result in the commissioning of a new site-specific performance piece in response to the themes of the network and the geography of the University of Exeter, Streatham Campus.
The public exhibition and live performance taking place in September 2016 at the University of Exeter will be aimed at the local community. This will include approximately 20,000 students and university staff as well as the wider community of Exeter and the South West. Through that week-long display, visitors will further their knowledge of contemporary geological concerns and reflect on human-earth relations as they are mediated by three performance-based video works and one site-specific live piece. This will contribute to increase the value ascribed by visitors to the realm of the geologic.
The general public, in turn, will be given access to the themes and activities of the network even if not attending the public programme. This will be done through publicising the research network in the media via press releases that, it is hoped, will attract news coverage. In addition to that, the network website and Twitter feed will also be publicly accessible throughout and after the networking events. As per the local community, the aim here is also to foster a richer understanding of the complex networks of relations between human bodies and the lithic, as well as raising awareness of the value of the geological environment and its impact on our quality of life.
In the long term, the pathways to impact mentioned above will contribute to a higher level of public engagement with geological issues and environmental policy-making. At the same time, and still thanks to its dissemination and impact strategies, the network will also benefit wider creative communities working with or within the geologic.
More immediately, however, and thanks to the promotion of the network in the national, regional, and specialist media, and through the programming of a public exhibition and live performance, the network will benefit the following non-academic communities:
- creative practitioners (through participation in the seminars, visits to British Geological Survey and Trenoweth quarry, participation in exhibition, and commission of new performance piece);
- the local community (through attending the public exhibition);
- the general public (through press releases detailing the context, concerns, and aims of the network as well as its creative outputs).
The artists and curators involved will benefit from the activities by being given the opportunity to enter into productive dialogue with scientists and humanities scholars. Such dialogue will not only be able to influence their creative process in future works but will also directly result in the commissioning of a new site-specific performance piece in response to the themes of the network and the geography of the University of Exeter, Streatham Campus.
The public exhibition and live performance taking place in September 2016 at the University of Exeter will be aimed at the local community. This will include approximately 20,000 students and university staff as well as the wider community of Exeter and the South West. Through that week-long display, visitors will further their knowledge of contemporary geological concerns and reflect on human-earth relations as they are mediated by three performance-based video works and one site-specific live piece. This will contribute to increase the value ascribed by visitors to the realm of the geologic.
The general public, in turn, will be given access to the themes and activities of the network even if not attending the public programme. This will be done through publicising the research network in the media via press releases that, it is hoped, will attract news coverage. In addition to that, the network website and Twitter feed will also be publicly accessible throughout and after the networking events. As per the local community, the aim here is also to foster a richer understanding of the complex networks of relations between human bodies and the lithic, as well as raising awareness of the value of the geological environment and its impact on our quality of life.
In the long term, the pathways to impact mentioned above will contribute to a higher level of public engagement with geological issues and environmental policy-making. At the same time, and still thanks to its dissemination and impact strategies, the network will also benefit wider creative communities working with or within the geologic.
| Title | Rock/Body commissioned performance |
| Description | Approximately 40 people attended an outdoors site-specific performance piece commissioned by the research network, which took place in the grounds of the University of Exeter on the 9th of September, 2016, and was devised and performed by Paula Kramer (Germany) in collaboration with Annette Arlander (Finland), Carolyn Deby (Canada/UK), and David Paton (UK). |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2016 |
| Impact | The Rock/Body performance sparked conversation amongst the audience which travelled locally from Exeter, regionally from Devon, Cornwall and Somerset, with some audience members having purposefully travelled from Manchester and London. Audiences stayed on site after the 30-minute long performance to discuss it and the research activities behind it. Some audience members who were artists working with landscape, stone carving, and performance, approached the PI with a visible interest in the activities of the network and enquiring on the possibility of their own involvement in further collaborative research activities exploring similar concerns. |
| URL | http://rockbody.exeter.ac.uk/exhibition/ |
| Title | Rock/Body exhibition |
| Description | Approximately 80 people visited an exhibition of video, installation, and photography artworks exploring relationships between the human and the geologic. It included existing works by artists participating in the research network: Annette Arlander (Finland), Vest and Page (Italy/Germany), mirko nicolic (Serbia/UK), Paula Kramer (Germany), Rose Ferraby (UK), and David Paton (UK). |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2016 |
| Impact | Audiences reported never having really considered their relationship with the geological world in the ways highlighted by the exhibition. |
| URL | http://rockbody.exeter.ac.uk/exhibition/ |
| Title | Strata |
| Description | The fifth performance-based film project by VestAndPage deals with Deep Time and layers of memory in human history and the geological. In prehistoric caves of the UNESCO World Heritage Site at the Swabian Jura and other subsurface environments, science meets performance art, theatre, dance, visual art, and music through international collaborations and interdisciplinary processes. |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | Strata is a performance-based film developed by Venice-based artists VestAndPage, as a direct result of their participation in the AHRC Research Network. |
| URL | https://www.stratafilm.de |
| Description | 1) The 'Matter' of Geological Bodies The human body is increasingly important in geology, especially medical geology. While much recent work at the science/humanities interface draws attention to the human impact on geological or earth processes, the significance of medical geology lies in its tracing of material impacts that move in the other direction: from the earth into individual and collective bodies. Scientists think about the body largely in terms of measurable impacts of specific geological or geochemical processes on bodily integrity and functions. There is a much stronger imperative in the arts and humanities - especially prevalent in performance studies - to reflect on what bodies might yet be capable of, what their potentialities or future conditions and possibilities might be. This distinction between empirical and speculative approaches to the body is a point of tension and possible misunderstanding between broad disciplinary groupings, but also one that can foster valuable future work. 2) Alternative Geologies Geological knowledge should move beyond Eurocentric perspectives by examining embodied experiences of geological formations and processes in regions such as the Caribbean, where earth processes are often abrupt or violent, or Australia, where the experience of indigenous peoples spans tens of thousands of years. In these and other cases, local embodied experiences of the geologic are expressed in cultural performances - literature, poetry, storytelling, dance, ritual - the temporalities of which present both challenges and opportunities to "Western" modes of cultural and scientific expression. This also circles back on the question of how specific geological processes themselves may underpin, condition, stimulate and sometimes destabilise cultural processes. 3) Geo-Mediation and the Archive Key fields of geological research (including stratigraphy, palaeontology, and the applied field of mineral prospecting and exploration) have historically involved the assembling of vast and rich archives. At the same time, many arts and humanities researchers have extensive experience of interrogating and actively exploring novel possibilities of display and archiving to help bring archives "alive" in ways that are physically tangible, visually rich, and self-critical. We see potential in earth scientists collaborating with artists and humanities scholars to explore alternative ways of mediating and grasping geological processes for both specialist and non-specialist audiences. This should involve new modes of conceptualising archives, the field, and other sites of geological mediation as theatres where knowledge is enacted is distributed. 4) Rock/Body interactions and Nature-Culture Questions The moving back and forth between the human and the geologic can offer new challenges and insights regarding the broader nature-culture dualism that still underpins our major disciplinary divisions. We found that certain concepts such as "affinity," "competition," "release," "storage," "mobility," "action/reaction," "exhaustion," "movement," or "performance" circulate between the earth sciences and the humanities. Similarly, "fracture," "stress," "healing," and "repair" are used both in regard to organic bodies and rock formations. This realisation should inform "meta-disciplinary" questions about the specificities of the living and the non-living, and the disciplines that speak for them. They offer a relatively novel entry point into some of the most enduring conceptual questions in Western thought. |
| Exploitation Route | The findings may be taken forward through collaborative research activities at the intersections of the geosciences, the arts and the humanities, exploring the place and nature of the "human" in relation to the geologic. This type of enquiry has a strong precedent in previous works which have framed the nature of identity and the self through articulations of humanities knowledge with developments in biology and immunology. However, it would also need to move in the opposite direction, that is, to draw from the arts and humanities to examine and inform the production of scientific knowledge. Crucially here, issues of geo-mediation would be of paramount importance, because knowledge of the subsurface is necessarily produced through mediating visual technologies and/or through the reading of visual cues on the landscape during fieldwork. Here, the critical knowledge of the humanities and the practical, embodied knowledge of artists can become an invaluable resource for scientists. Finally, in terms of both environmental protection and education, non-academic stakeholders, including environmental agencies and mining industries, can build up on the outcomes of this network by working in partnership with artists and humanities scholars to better engage non-specialist publics in communicating geological knowledge, mining impact, and environmental awareness. |
| Sectors | Education,Environment,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| URL | http://rockbody.exeter.ac.uk/reports/ |
| Description | 1) On a more immediate level, the activities of the Rock/Body Research Network have already had a meaningful impact on the work of some of the artists who participated in the project: - Carolyn Deby, a visual and performance artist created a performance piece in response to the research brief of the network, which was performed at the University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus on the 23 July 2016. - Paula Kramer (Germany) developed a new site-specific performance piece in collaboration with Carolyn Deby (Canada/UK), David Paton (UK), and Annette Arlander (Finland), which was performed at the University of Exeter, Streatham campus to a diverse audience including students, other academics, and non-academic audiences who travelled mostly from the Southwest region (with some audience members having specially travelled for the performance from Manchester and London). - Annette Arlander has documented her engagement with the network through blog posts, which include a new series of photographs taken in Falmouth on the occasion of the 2nd Rock/Body seminar and documentation of her participation in the performance at the University of Exeter, Streatham campus. Both the blog posts and the documentation of Annette's works developed in response to the Rock/Body network can be found online: https://annettearlander.com/2016/07/25/rockbody-in-falmouth/ ; https://annettearlander.com/2016/09/09/rocks-on-the-body-in-exeter/ ; https://vimeo.com/182318518 2) Further to the above, the network activities led to an exhibition which took place in Exeter alongside the 3rd seminar and Paula Kramer's performance commission (8-9 September 2016). The exhibition included a performance film by Vest and Page (Italy/Germany), a performance and installation by Mirko Nikolic (Serbia/UK), two video works by David Paton (UK), and photographs by Rose Ferraby (UK). Audience feedback collected throughout the two-day exhibition showed a pattern: most of the audience members attended either out of curiosity or due to an interest in arts events taking place in Exeter. The vast majority of surveys also note how the exhibition has changed perceptions about the relationships between the human body and the geologic, which surveyed audience members claimed to never have really considered beforehand. When asked about how the exhibition might affect their behaviours or attitudes, surveyed members responded with sentences such as "it will make me contemplate relation between body + rock, which I hadn't really considered. Also relationship between art + geology"; or "Think more about timescales in my relationship to my environment." Surveys also scored an average of 4/5 for interest, enjoyment, learning, diversity of works, accessibility, and information provided. 3) Finally, as a direct result of the research networking activities, artists Vest and Page have now started conceptualising a new work for which they have invited some of the network participants to take part as collaborators. The artists intend to take the Rock/Body brief and use it to explore ideas of memory embodied in human bodies and geological strata through a new performance film to be shot in underground caves in Devon and Germany, which the artists have visited in the aftermath of their participation in the research network. Once concluded, the artists intend for the film to have a series of public screenings in the UK, Europe and the USA, which would include panel discussions/Q&A with the artists and some of the researchers involved, exploring the research questions that led this network and the ways in which the artists have responded to them. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2016 |
| Sector | Creative Economy,Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal |
| Description | Masculinity and the Ethics of Porosity in 'Post-AIDS' Gay Porn |
| Amount | £194,184 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | AH/S00193X/1 |
| Organisation | Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 02/2019 |
| End | 01/2021 |
| Description | European Theatre Perspectives (Wroclaw European Capital of Culture 2016) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The PI was invited to give a talk about the Rock/Body project at "European Theatre Perspectives," a symposium co-organised by Culture Hub and the Grotowski Institute in Wroclaw, Poland, as part of Wroclaw European Capital of Culture 2016. The audience comprised theatre and performance scholars, artists, undergraduate and postgraduate students, and the general public. The talk generated good discussion afterwards, particularly in relation to the role theatre and performance practices might play in investigating and disseminating knowledge about the human relationship with the geologic in the context of the current ecological crisis. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | https://culturehub.co/works/european_theatre_perspectives_symposium_programme |
| Description | Interview for Bad at Sports |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | PI was interviewed by Caroline Picard for Chicago-based arts website "Bad at Sports." The interview dealt with the PI's participation in Performance Studies International conference #22 (University of Melbourne, 2016), where the PI delivered a talk about the Rock/Body research network. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://badatsports.com/2016/inescapable-out-of-phaseness-an-interview-with-joao-florencio/ |
| Description | Political Geology workshop (Cambridge) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Co-I introduced the Rock/Body project and used it to present ideas and stimulate discussion around `political geologies' in a mixed group of social science/humanities and earth science graduate students/lecturers which stimulated interest in further collaboration - especially with PG students |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://talks.cam.ac.uk/talk/index/71215 |
| Description | Public lecture (ICA, London) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | I was invited to deliver a guest lecture at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London on the topic of ecology and performance. The talk drew directly from my AHRC Networking project and from subsequent developments of the ideas that emerged as part of it. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.ica.art/live/embodied-knowledge-ecology-and-performance |
| Description | Rock/Body Seminars |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | 23 participants, including academic researchers and artists, attended a series of 3 seminars exploring the themes of the research network; those took place at the British Geological Survey (Nottingham), The Cornwall campus of the University of Exeter (Penryn), the Streatham Campus of the University of Exeter (Exeter). A final debrief meeting took place at the Arnolfini Gallery (Bristol). The aim was to engage researchers from the humanities, the social sciences, earth sciences, and artists in a discussion about the ways in which their interests in the relationship between the human and the geologic might overlap and inform one another. An exhibition and public performance came out of those seminars and took place in Exeter in September 2016, as a way of engaging the general public with those ideas. The seminars have also led to: - A talk by the PI about the project at Ambika P3 gallery in London in the context of the exhibition "burning hearts of a thousand tiny matters" (February 2017). - The PI travelling to the Venice International Performance Art Week (December 2016) to respond to the show in relation to the work of the Rock/Body research network (text to be published in the upcoming post-festival catalogue). - the conceptualisation of a special issue of the journal _Environmental Humanities_, co-edited by the PI and Co-I, with articles by some of the researchers and artists involved in the network, a proposal for which was submitted to the journal editors in January 2017. - A new idea for a performance film to be devised by artist duo Vest and Page (Germany/Italy) in collaboration with the PI, Co-I, and some of the other researchers in the network, with the production support, already secured, of the Live Art Development Agency in London. The film, to be shot in the Kents Cavern in Devon and in two other caves in Germany, will explore the idea of strata (geological strata and memory strata) through performances devised for camera. It will then hopefully be screened in Italy, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany and the USA, alongside panel discussions with the artists and collaborating researchers, shining some light on human/geologic interfaces. For this film and public screenings, the PI will seek follow-on funding. - a new idea for a research project under the working title of "Geo-Imagination: From the Field to the Archive." This project, currently at early stages of development, will seek funding from the AHRC to explore the ways in which the geologic is imagined and enacted, and geological knowledge produced in a variety of sites: the natural history museum, the geologist's fieldwork, the laboratory, the mine, and the communities that surround mining enterprises. It will also involve artists to explore how geological knowledge is distributed and to bring together those different communities of stakeholders and publics and examine how their different kinds of geological knowledge relate to one another and the values that underlie them. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016,2017 |
| URL | http://rockbody.exeter.ac.uk/exhibition/ |
| Description | Rock/Body Twitter account |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | A twitter account was created for the network, which was used to promote the research activities and the public performance and exhibition, alongside other relevant third-party content. The account has drawn engagement from artists, academics, students, art organisations, and science organisations in the UK and abroad. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016,2017 |
| URL | https://twitter.com/UofE_RockBody |
| Description | Rock/Body website |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The Rock/Body website was set up as a way of publicising the activities of the network, reporting on the workshops, and promoting the exhibition and performance programme. The website was visited by almost 600 users in the 12 months of the project (excluding the ones accessing the website from the internal University of Exeter server), who were mostly based in the UK, USA, India, Germany, The Netherlands and Finland (source: Google Analytics). It drew both external researchers, artists, and the general public to discover the project. Some have contacted the PI for further information and/or asking to participate in the project, with one of the artists involved-Carolyn Deby-having joined the network after learning about it through the website. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016,2017 |
| URL | http://rockbody.exeter.ac.uk |
| Description | burning hearts of a thousand tiny matters (Ambika P3 Gallery, London) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The PI gave a talk about the activities of the Network and some of the ideas that emerged from it as part of "Facing the Inhuman," a symposium that took place in parallel with "burning hearts of a thousand tiny matters," an exhibition exploring ecology and new materialism at Ambika P3 Gallery in London in February 2017. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.westminster.ac.uk/burning-hearts-of-a-thousand-tiny-matters |