It's 1992. In a small town in Fife, a girl is busting to get out into the world and see what's on offer. And an ad in the local paper declares: Band Seeks Singer. Grunge has just gone global, scruffy indie kids are inheriting the earth, and a schoolgirl from Glenrothes is catapulted to a rock star lifestyle as the singer in a hot new indie band. Touring with Radiohead, partying with Blur, she was living the dream. Until she wasn't. What Girls Are Made Of is the true story of Bissett's teenage years, based on her meticulously detailed, pull-no-punches diaries, which she found after the death of her father. It's a rollercoaster journey from the girl she was to the woman she wanted to be: rocketed into teenage stardom, suddenly dropped by their manager, and then the following of years of becoming an actor, writer and director. Described by Miro Magazine as "a glorious mixture of harrowing and life-affirming messages", the script also includes a play list of female-led soundtracks, that were played in the production.

This body of work is a contemplation of human beings' passage on earth and their intimate interrelation with the environment. This book attempts to bring humour to the things we are getting attached to. It points at the invisible within the visible, the immaterial within the material or the vertical nature of being (and its mirror-like quality) within our horizontal way of living (where our mind, time, and space condition our experiences). The naked body is seen as our primary indivisible unit of perception which is usually pushed and pulled by our thinking mind's desire to either get less or more. In other words, our lives are coloured by our minds and since body-mind is a single entity, most of the colours painted on the body are an allusion to the range of our changing desires from being invisible or transparent to wanting to be singular and the centre of attention. The book's Interviews (the interviewers are from Russia, Colombia, Korea, Germany, and the US) stanzas, and photographs are not seen as being subservient to one another but can be seen as an assemblage of three independent directions that may or may not intersect following each reader.

The works of interdisciplinary artist Kira O'Reilly use the uncertain boundaries of bodies as the starting point for their enquiry. Specifically, O'Reilly asks what kind of societies become possible in collaborations across species, organisms and bodies, and she explores these questions through sustained and experimental engagements with politics, biopolitics, change (social, corporeal, chemical, reactive) and the complex relations between the human and the non-human. This book is the first to offer an in-depth engagement with her many works across diverse formats. Bringing together writings by major artists and thinkers, such as Marina Abramovic, Shannon Bell and Tracey Warr, alongside extensive documentation of the artist's work from two decades of practice, the contributions engage with such topics as ideas of performance, feminist political aesthetics, biotechnical practices, image-making and the intersections of humans and animals. The book also includes interviews, archive material and O'Reilly's own writings. Publication Forum (Finland) lists this book as a Level 2 publication, where 'the highest-level publications are directed as a result of extensive competition and demanding peer-review'. For Intellect's full listings in this catalogue, please click here.

Beyond the Happening uncovers the heterogeneous, uniquely interdisciplinary performance-based works that emerged in the aftermath of the early Happenings. By the mid-1960s Happenings were widely declared outmoded or even 'dead', but this book reveals how many practitioners continued to work with the form during the late 1960s and 1970s, developing it into a vehicle for studying interpersonal communication that simultaneously deployed and questioned contemporary sociology and psychology. Focussing on the artists Allan Kaprow, Marta Minujin, Carolee Schneemann and Lea Lublin, it charts how they revised and retooled the premises of the Happening within a wider network of dynamic international activity. The resulting performances directly intervened in the wider discourse of communication studies, as it manifested in the politics of countercultural dropout, soft power and cultural diplomacy, alternative pedagogies, sociological art and feminist consciousness-raising. -- .

Why do so many writers and audiences turn to theatre to resolve overwhelming topics of pain and suffering? This collection of essays from international scholars reconsiders how theatre has played a crucial part in encompassing and preserving significant human experiences. Plays about global issues, including terrorism and war, are increasing in attention from playwrights, scholars, critics and audiences. In this contemporary collection, a gathering of diverse contributors explain theatre's special ability to generate dialogue and promote healing when dealing with human tragedy. This collection discusses over 30 international plays and case studies from different time periods, all set in a backdrop of war. The four sections document British and American perspectives on theatres of war, global perspectives on theatres of war, perspectives on Black Watch and, finally, perspectives on The Great Game: Afghanistan. Through this, a range of international scholars from different disciplines imaginatively rethink theatre's unique ability to mediate the impacts and experiences of war. Featuring contributions from a variety of perspectives, this book provides a wealth of revealing insights into why authors and audiences have always turned to the unique medium of theatre to make sense of war.

G. H. Hovagimyan is an absurdist, a strategist, a serial collaborator, and nothing short of a cultural icon in the world of contemporary art, particularly as it relates to how artists have adopted the digital technological tools of our times, adapting them in his work for critique of art, popular culture, and social engagement. Situationist Funhouse is a joyride through this history. The journey Stephen Zacks so meticulously documents and describes is not only an incredibly comprehensive ride through G. H.'s life work to date - Hovagimyan adopted G. H. as an acronym in the 1990s as a kind of gesture of personal rebirth and to ease others' difficulty with his last name [pronounced ho-va-GIM-yan] - it also serves as a document that tracks a particular view on the alternative contemporary art scene of New York from the 1970s to the present day.

The KfW Foundation and the cultural centre Kunstlerhaus Bethanien are collaborating on a studio programme offering a twelve month residency in Berlin to young artists from Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. Verlag Kettler presents the artistic work of the grant holders in an on-going book series. Matheus Rocha Pitta (born 1980 in Tiradentes, Brazil, lives and works in Rio de Janeiro) has created a new group of works entitled For the Winners the Potatoes. At the time of publication, this work an be found at the exhibition room of Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, as well as in two of Berlin's underground stations, Hermannplatz and Gesundbrunnen, and in a showcase at SOX in Berlin's Oranienstrasse. Rocha Pitta's performative installations at Kunstlerhaus Bethanien and in the underground stations allow him to interact with the public. He presents trophies that are made of plastic bags or concrete instead of gold, silver or bronze, and invites visitors to take along potatoes as victory trophies. His work deconstructs the concept of victory and the hierarchy of winners and losers, creating a dense network of historical references going back to Ancient Greece and asking fundamental questions about the meaning of gestures, the community and its value. Rocha Pitta portrays his trophies with a mocking sense of humour. By connecting glory with mundane, everyday objects, he aims to subvert the hierarchy of winners and losers and invites the spectator to rethink the meaning of victory and defeat.

Hundreds of years of ridicule, persecution, erasure, misunderstanding, and institutionalization could put anyone in a bad mood. Killjoy invites you into her kastle for a queer exorcism and celebration of the past. Lesbian feminist histories can have a haunting effect on the present. This book explores the making and experience of Killjoy's Kastle, an immersive walk-through installation and performance artwork (by Allyson Mitchell and Deirdre Logue). Inspired by Evangelical Christian hell houses, the exhibition has been staged in four cities so far - Toronto, London, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia - engaging thousands in interactive encounters with the spirits that haunt feminist and queer history. Where traditional hell houses set out to scare and convert, Killjoy's Kastle cheekily aims to provoke and pervert. Inside Killjoy's Kastle extends and reflects on the theoretical and political legacies of the installation in chapters by queer and feminist scholars and in vignettes by participating artists. The many colourful photos in the book also bring the kastle to life, offering an important visual context.

Consuming Scenography offers an insight into contemporary scenographic practice beyond the theatre. It explores the ways in which scenography is used to create a global cultural impact and accelerate profits in the site-specific context of themed shopping malls. It analyses the effect of the architectural, aesthetic, spatial, material and sensory aspects of design through their performative encounters with consumers in order to offer a better understanding of performance design. In the first part the author explores the spatial seduction of an enclosed market space and traces the origins of scenographic temporality in permanent architectonic spaces for trade and commerce, from ancient Greek and Roman roofed markets and Oriental bazaars to 19th-century arcades and department stores to modern-day shopping malls.The second section addresses the site-specific theatricality of the shopping mall, considering the use of performative aspects of scenography in the creation of corporate identity. It engages with production and consumption of experience in themed shopping malls, using historical, aesthetical, social and political lenses. In the final section, the author intertwines fluidity of market changes with flexibility of scenographic matter, drawing attention to both contradictions and prospects that merging of scenography and architecture can bring along. Considering a variety of case studies of themed shopping malls, including the Ibn Battuta Mall in Dubai, Terminal 21 in Bangkok, the Villaggio in Doha and Montecasino in Johannesburg, as well as further examples from Europe, USA and Asia - this book provides a wide-ranging critical examination of the ways in which scenographic thinking and practices are exploited in wider cultural contexts for impact, branding, and higher profits.

Canada's recent sesquicentennial celebrations were the latest in a long, steady progression of Canadian cultural memory projects. Unbecoming Nationalism investigates the power of commemorative performances in the production of nationalist narratives. Using 'unbecoming' as a theoretical framework to unsettle or decolonize nationalist narratives, Helene Vosters examines an eclectic range of both state-sponsored social memory projects and counter-memorial projects to reveal and unravel the threads connecting reverential military commemoration, celebratory cultural nationalism, and white settler-colonial nationalism. Vosters brings readings of institutional, aesthetic, and activist performances of Canadian military commemoration, settler-colonial nationalism, and redress into conversation with literature that examines the relationship between memory, violence, and nationalism from the disciplinary arenas of performance studies, Canadian studies, critical race and Indigenous studies, memory studies, and queer and gender studies. In addition to using performance as a theoretical framework, Vosters uses performance to enact a philosophy of praxis and embodied theory.