The Other City
This one year project, funded by Arts Council England, was led by Dr Matt Davies and supported by Katy Vanden and Brad McCormick of Cap-a-pie.
Synopsis of the research project
The Other City is a downloadable audio play performed by the listener in an urban setting. Its performance affords an opportunity to explore perceptions of the city through comparisons with urban experiences in Rio de Janeiro. The cities are encountered aesthetically. The research explores and deploys methods that have emerged in the performance-as-research paradigm, helping illuminate urbanism and critiquing received wisdom about contemporary urbanisation. By examining how the performance of the everyday became a political gesture in Rio in preparation for the Olympics, it shows how politics and be inaugurated in the everyday. However, the research concludes more cautiously, insisting that performance cannot provide political guarantees.
Key outputs
Davies, Matt (2021). Urban Sites of the Everyday and the International: The Other City and the Aesthetic Subject. In Shirin M. Rai, Milija Gluhovic, Silvija Jestrovic, and Michael Saward, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Politics and Performance, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 293-305.