Participants

Dr Angela Campbell (Arts Academy), Tom Gutteridge (Facilitator), Dr Michelle Duffy (Federation University, Gippsland), Dr Tanja Beer (Uni Melbourne), Prof Peter Gell (Federation University, Environmental Management), Dr Jessica Reeves (Federation University, Environmental Management), Lucinda Horrocks (Wind and Sky Productions), Jary Nemo (Wind and Sky Productions), Dr Carole Wilson (Arts Academy, Ballarat), Dr Richard Chew (Arts Academy, Ballarat), Sharon Turley (Community), Amy Tsilemanis (PhD student, Arts Academy)

Research retreat 2016

How do waterways map the future against the past? How do we apprehend the past, to plan for the future? Watermark@Narmbool brought science and art together to track the dynamic changes in conditions around Ballarat’s waterways, shaped and shared between humans and non-humans, across inter-related ecological and cultural landscapes.

The paper discusses contemporary explorations of human/animal relations with particular reference to animal extinctions in Australia, in and through performance. Campbell compares two recent works performed in Melbourne, I, Animal, a site-specific work that uses new media and participatory techniques, and a more traditional play, They Saw a Thylacine, that is performed in a theatre. The paper traces how both performances explore the socially constructed hierarchies of power that exist between human and non-human animals. It posits that human constructions of gender, class and race play a powerful role in determining which human and non-human animals survive and thrive, and which do not.

Conference paper

Dr Angela Campbell, “Performing Extinction: I, Animal and They Saw a Thylacine,” psi, Performance Studies International, University of Melbourne, July 2016.

Publication

Campbell, Angela. “Journeys into Extinction: I, Animal and They Saw a Thylacine. Ctrl-Z, New Media Philosophy, #6, 2016.