The Energies Artists Say Forum and Workshop

Image Credit: spaces between movement and stillness (detail), 2022 by Harriet Schwarzrock Blown glass, ionised neon and xenon gas, electrodes, electrical current

Join Douglas Kahn (USyd) and Dr. Pia van Gelder (SoAD, ANU) for two fascinating events!

With few exceptions, historians, theorists, and critics have ignored or downplayed the energies—all of them—that many practitioners and participants across the arts, music, dance, literature, etc. have understood to be operating in their works and the world. The new field of Energy Humanities has both encouraged and constrained investigation into energies by effectively equating energy with sources and systems of fuel and power generation. However, artists did not use this sense of the word until the 1970s, along with everyone else, after the so-called energy crisis. Artists have said many more energies, their cognates and associations, before, during and since this time. A pluralistic approach to the historical and cultural analysis of energies was introduced by Douglas Kahn (USyd) in the Energies in the Arts (MIT Press, 2019) and is being developed methodologically, with Dr. Pia van Gelder (SoAD, ANU), in The Energies Artists Say (in-progress). Facilitated by Kahn’s visit to ANU these researchers will share this research in the following two events:

Updated:  16 September 2022/Responsible Officer:  Head of School/Page Contact:  CASS Marketing & Communications