Monday 27 August 2012

Art installation at symposium


      Steve Wilson, illustrator and writer, will be presenting his “A-Z S.O.D.S” on 1st September at the performing monstrosity symposium:

  “He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something downright detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn’t specify the point. He’s an extraordinary-looking man, and yet I really can name nothing out of the way. No sir; I can make no hand of it; I can’t describe him. And it’s not want of memory; for I declare I can see him this moment.”        
              (Robert Louis Stevenson: The strange case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde)

Darkly we delight in the notion of the urban monster, that harbinger of social paranoia and devilish dreams. Born and reborn on the wings of the collective consciousness of the great artisans, we catch their form.
From Dante to Blake, surpassing culture and place, the monstrous incarnations are indelibly impressed. They speak of the unspeakable, fortify the untouchable and grow grotesquely until reality and the dream fade into an ominous grey space. Here, terror and taboo hand us helplessly to the devices of that “mysterious other”.

As a contemporary compendium of the darker elements of humanity and the socially absurd, “A-Z S.O.D.S” propagates its own brand of satirical exorcism. The caricatured effigies are caught between pen and paper and brought out into the light.
The blend of cruelty and comedy, re-enactment and realization, requests the reader to revel, rebel and to reform their own notions of idiosyncrasy and monstrosity.


A
... is for the Anarchist, Adam,
Who armed the East in search of Saddam,
And sold for himself, ten-dozen tin tanks,
While strutting the street in his star-spangled pants.


BIG


Thursday 23 August 2012

La rambla barcelona


Leading up to the 1st September we will share some monstrous images with you. Feel free to leave your comments.

Tuesday 31 July 2012

related symposium on zombies



Some of you who plan to attend the Performing Monstrosity symposium may also be interested to attend/send in abstracts for the following symposium on zombies:

Thursday 19 July 2012

Changes to the Catalan Panel


Due to unforeseen circumstances, there has been a change in our Catalan panel in the afternoon. 

We are pleased to welcome Dr. Laia Manonelles from the University of Barcelona to our panel, which will focus on the so-calledVampiress of the Raval, the notorious case of Enriqueta Martí, a woman who led a double life; prostitution and pimping out children by day and appearing in finery in the upper echelons of turn-of-the-century Barcelona society by night. Together with Merce Saumell, she will discuss the case of this grotesque 'social monster', and on the one hand bring a sociological analysis of her behaviour, whilst on the other Merce Saumell will discuss her reappearance in theatre in Barcelona on the centenary of her death.

This panel promises to be a fascinating insight into one of Spain's most grotesque characters; a true urban monster, and we are very grateful to Dr. Manonelles for agreeing to step in and complete this very promising panel.

Wednesday 4 July 2012

Registration form...


Performing Monstrosity in the City

1st September 2012
ArtsOne Building
Queen Mary, University of London

Registration Form

Name:
Affiliation:
Address:
Phone:
Email:
Registration fee: £10
Please pay your registration at our online Performing Monstrosity page at this address, http://eshop.qmul.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=2&prodid=260&deptid=34&catid=1 and please return the form to performingthemonster@gmail.com before the 20th August.
We look forward to welcoming you to our event and thank you for your participation,
Anna Wilson and Charlie Allwood

The first programme draft...


Performing Monstrosity in the City

Queen Mary, University of London

1st September 2012

9am – 10am                Registration
10am – 10:10am         Introduction
10:10 – 11:00              Keynote: Deborah Dixon and Carl Lavery (U. Aberystwyth)
                                    Sites of Contagion: Hashima Island
                                    Chair: Kim Solga
11:00 – 12:30              Panels:
                                   
Birthing Monsters
The Transnational Lens: Monsters on Film
Urban Zombies
Chair: Jonathan Marshall (U. Otago)
Chair: Debra Shaw (U. East London)
Chair: Paul Coulton
Emily Garside (Cardiff Metropolitan U.)
‘This is your universe Frankenstein’: the re-appropriation of the monstrous in Danny Boyle’s Frankenstein.

Maria d’Argenio (KCL)
The Inner Monstrous in Latin American Cinema: the Inhumanity of War in Días de Santiago (Josué Méndez, 2004) and La sombra del caminante (Ciro Guerra, 2005)
Belén Martín-Lucas (U. Vigo)
Utopian biocommunism among the ruins:
Nalo Hopkinson’s Brown Girl in the Ring as anticapitalist dystopia

Katie Beswick (U. Leeds)
The Brutalist Monstrosity of the Council Estate: Habitus, performance and the potential of place
Chris Perkins (U. Edinburgh)
Kon Satoshi and the Dialectics of Monsters in post-bubble Japan
Andrea Ruthven (U. Barcelona)
Globalized Zombies in the City
Charlotte Bell (QM, UoL)
The Inner City and the Hoodie
Adam Scales (UEA)
Identity in Crisis: Sexuality and the Slasher Film
Alba de Béjar (U.Vigo)
Posthuman Apocalypse: Grotesque Bodies and Monstrous Cities in Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl



12:30 - 12:45               Coffee Break
12:45 – 1:30                Keynote: Claire Hind (U. York St. John) and Gary Winters (Lone Twin)
                                    KONG LEAR
                                    Chair: Siddharta Bose
1:30 – 2:15                  Lunch (provided)
2:15 – 3:30                  Keynotes: Josep-Anton Fernàndez (Open U. of Catalonia) and Mercè Saumell (Institut del Teatre, Barcelona)
                                    La Vampira del Raval and Barcelona’s Grand Guinyol
                                    Chair: Helena Buffery (UCC)
3:30 – 5:00                  Panels:
                                   
Playing with Monsters
The Ephemeral Urban: From the real to the virtual
The Monstrous Politics of Fear
Chair: Chris Perkins (U. Edinburgh)
Chair: Charlotte Bell (QM, UoL)
Chair: Belén Martín-Lucas (U. Vigo)
Maggie Irving (U. Plymouth)
Sedusa Medusa Clowning Revisions Clowning for Women

Richard Freeman (Centre for Fortean Zoology)
The thing on the doorstep: In search of Urban Monsters
Jonathan Marshall (U. Otago)
“Who will unchain the monsters?": Radical catharsis and neuropsychology at the Théâtre du Grand Guignol
Hannah Nicklin (U. Loughborough)
Playing with the monstrous; restructuring the ‘other’ through loveliness, adventure, and curiosity.
Paul Coulton and Andrew Wilson (U.?)
The Peoples Republic of Monsters
JD Taylor
 “Sacrifice, monstrosity and negativity in the neoliberal era: thirteen theses on the damaged body”.
Phil Smith (U. Plymouth)
Walking in Monstrous Cities
Garfield Benjamin (U. Wolverhampton)
Virtual Monsters: Becoming Death and the Quantum Immortal
Debra Shaw (U. East London)
Pirate Utopias and the New Politics of Space


5:00 – 5:20                  Coffee Break
5:20 – 6:30                  Round table
6:30                             Wine reception