PP for Postponement

In the present situation, when public live gatherings are becoming possible again, it is impossible to restart from where we left off without asking what has happened meanwhile. In what kind of mindset has the epidemic left us, and how has it informed our capacities and our liberties, our will and way to use them in the future? Since the circumstances vary a lot from one place to another, we, as conference organizers, want to avoid all generalizations regarding the problems they may imply. Instead, we hope that the forthcoming event would provide space and occasion for the participants coming from all over the world to come up with their personal testimonies, stories, and perceptions.

All in all, we are in a phase where existing academic practices have to be either reinvented or abandoned. In the case of the Performance Philosophy Problems conference, we have decided to favor a hybrid form, enabling both live and remote participation. This principle applies to both the Key Group sessions – that gather together all the conference participants – and the panel sessions consisting of individual presentations. The Key Groups accomplish the major part of their work in their local contexts, facing and aiming to solve the problems that the (post-)pandemic situation presents to their activities. Reporting those measures will constitute an essential part of the outcomes of the groups. In the common Key Group sessions, all these different models of action and tactical solutions will enter into mutual dialogue and comparison. As a result, we hope to have a realistic idea of how performance philosophy collaborates in relation to the given circumstances, in order to extend or surpass their limits. The Key Group sessions taking place live in Helsinki will be streamed online to the remote participants. When it comes to the panel sessions, part of them will take place live, and another part will be organized as zoom panels.

Our bet for the future modes of academic dissemination is the hybrid form, which combines both live and remote participation as well as parallel channels of communication complementing each other regarding contents and accessibility. At the same time as this new disposition raises new types of philosophical, ethical, and political questions, it provides us with a means for studying them performatively. All this will be at stake as the next Performance Philosophy conference takes place in Helsinki in June 2022. The event will also celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Performance Philosophy Association! What has Performance Philosophy done since it emerged? What futures might we imagine for it together?

Esa Kirkkopelto, Visiting researcher, Theatre Academy