Speaker: Maria Chatzichristodoulou [aka Maria X]

Abstract:
This talk is concerned with an investigation into the spatial contexts of digital and networked performance practices. The focus is on practices that emerge from, reside, develop or unfold in a) virtual worlds or, b) hybrid locations that merge physical and digital spacetimes (such as Augmented Reality environments). In those cases, questions of space inevitably emerge: Where do such practices occur?
Which are their stages, their environments, their natural habitats?
How do those virtual or hybrid environments (re)configure, shape or affect the practices they host? Following Henri Lefebvre the talk approaches space as 'social morphology' to examine the socio-political dimensions of those emergent stages.

Bio:

Maria Chatzichristodoulou [aka Maria X] is a cultural practitioner (curator, performer, producer, writer). Maria holds a PhD in Art and Computational Technologies from Goldsmiths Digital Studios, University of London.

She is Director of Postgraduate Studies and Lecturer in Theatre and Performance at the School of Arts and New Media, University of Hull.

Previously, Maria taught at the University of London Colleges Goldsmiths, Birkbeck and Queen Mary, and Richmond the American International University, and worked as a Community Officer at The Albany in South London. She was co- founder of the international media arts festival Medi@terra and co- director of Fournos Centre for Digital Culture (1996-2002, Athens, Greece). She has performed with Diplous Eros Ensemble and director Syllas Tzoumerkas (also in Athens, Greece). Maria is co-editor of the volume Interfaces of Performance (Ashgate, 2009) and the forthcoming volume Intimacy Across Visceral and Digital Performance (Palgrave MacMillan), which follows the Intimacy festival and Symposium that Maria initiated and co-directed in London (2007). She has lectured and published widely, including invited lectures at MIT and Yale University.