Living intermedia: Towards a theory of organism in sound-based material theatre

Abstract

The following article explores an emerging theoretical framework for ‘sound-based material theatre’, a form of post-instrumental, post-puppetry performance practice. Whitehead’s ‘philosophy of the organism’ is employed as a foundational vocabulary to describe the modes of interaction and synthesis of entities in an intermedial ecology. Drawing on instrument design theory, the discussion connects processes of embodied learning, mediation and distributed agency with a collaborative ‘animist’ approach to composition and performance. Challenges of mediation in intermedial practice are examined in relation to the perceived separation of senses and disciplines. Foucault’s analysis of the pre-classical epistemology of resemblance is used as a model for describing different types of cross-modal relations between materials, applied as a ‘nexus’ method of orchestration towards an ideal of a ‘living’ organism of intermedia.