Politics of/in immersive performance experiences (panel discussion)

Immersive performance invites us to step inside the story—sometimes as guests, sometimes as co-creators. But what happens when we think about the politics of these experiences? How might immersion itself be mobilised as a tool for critique, resistance, or complicity?

Bringing together artists Tania El Khoury, Patrick Blenkarn, David Mesiha and Jack Lander, this panel will explore the possibilities and limits of immersive performance as a political form, consider the shifting role of audience engagement within it, and reimagine what it means to be part of a performance.

Part of a day of events presented by Immersive Experiences ArtsLab (UofG) in partnership with Take Me Somewhere Festival.

The Glasgow University Concert Hall is accessible to wheelchair users.

Tania El Khoury is a live artist who creates interactive installations and performances that reflect on the production of collective memory and the cultivation of solidarity. Her work is activated by tactile, auditory and visual materials collected and curated by the artist and her collaborators, ultimately transformed through audience interaction. El Khoury’s work engages questions of displacement, border systems, privatization, and the politics of space. She is the recipient of the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, Soros Art Fellowship, the Bessie Outstanding Production Award, the International Live Art Prize, the Total Theatre Innovation Award, and the Arches Brick Award. Her work has been translated to multiple languages and shown in 35 countries across six continents in spaces ranging from museums to cable cars. Tania is Distinguished Artist in Residence and Associate Professor of Theater & Performance at Bard College in New York where she is also the founding director of the Center for Human Rights & the Arts.

Jack Lander is an artist and researcher with multimedia practice grounded in technical and synthetic image-making, theatre and game design. Jack is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Glasgow, where his research explores the experience of remote militarised spaces in the Scottish landscape through simulation and extended reality. Working across the virtual and the actual, he is particularly interested in how the indexical qualities of scanned landscapes alter sensorial affect within immersive digital spaces. Jack was a founding member of the anarchic art and performance collective 85A and worked as an artist and designer with the experimental theatre company Untitled Projects. His work has been exhibited at The Tate Modern, The Dublin Science Centre, The ICA London, and The Kunstmuseum Bonn, working alongside organisations including Warp Records, Editions Mego, Scottish Dance Theatre, Void Nomadic Gallery, Fusion Kulturcosmos, and Sonar Barcelona. Jack is also a laser designer and a rave enthusiast, having worked on shows for Aphex Twin, Florian Hecker, Sega Bodega, Lorenzo Senni, and The Modern Institute.

Patrick Blenkarn is an artist working at the intersection of performance, game design, and visual art. Often engaging with the politics of participation and interactivity, his recent works feature sustained investigations into the subjects of language, labour, democracy, and the art economy, with projects ranging in form from video games and card games to stage plays and books. His work has been featured in film festivals, galleries, and performance festivals across Canada, and recently in Argentina, Mexico, Germany, and the Arctic. He is the Producer for The Elbow Theatre in Vancouver and one half of Guilty by Association. Patrick has a degree in philosophy, theatre, and film from the University of King's College and an MFA in interdisciplinary art from Simon Fraser University.

David Mesiha (he/him) is a Toronto & Vancouver-based award-winning Composer | Sound Designer | Mixed media Artist. He is known for his music composition and multimedia installations alike. David's artistic practice has often seen him take on a collaborative role in the total conception, co-creation and realisation of work with particular sensitivity to dramaturgy as well as immersive audio-visual design. David’s work has received critical acclaim across multiple media, including theatre, film, and video games. David is co-artistic director of Theatre Conspiracy in Vancouver.

The panel is chaired by Dr. Eirini Nedelkopoulou who is a lecturer in Digital Arts and Performance and one of the co-directors of the Immersive Experiences Lab at the University of Glasgow.

Host or Publisher IELab (University of Glasgow)