Inter-/Trans-/Unidisciplinary Methods – Techniques – Structures

List of Contributors

Instead of an Introduction, Part 2

Volume 1 begins with not that rhetoric question, if there is a need to talk about methods and techniques of doing and conducting science? And if we are not postmodern, what seems to be right and needed?

There has been an understanding of the world for over 70 years that we still are happy with ‘contemporary’ literature and linguistics disappearing behind and under a numerous fields, topics and methods.

Just to remember: as we think of the about science, its impact on social surroundings and the question of being useful or scientific, there is a disparate answer: we shall do science and try to get the impact, but we shall not try to make any commercial use of what we work on. As Academia, we conduct research. But how is it done? What do young scientists think of the proposed methods and paradigms?

Following a strong belief, that there is a lack of theoretical discussion and critical thinking in and about contemporary theory of science, we decided to organize a conference on these topics. The Conference was organized by the PhD students of the Faculty of Modern Languages at the University of Warsaw.

As the two volumes INTER-/TRANS-/UNIDISCIPLINARY METHODS – TECHNIQUES – STRUCTURES show, there is a strong need among the young scientists to ask questions about doing science. One is certain: the “why” they conduct scientific research is powerful, the “how” can always get stronger. That is why so many young people sent their papers in, and that is why so many came to Warsaw to pose questions and to seek answers.

As the reader can choose between that many different approaches and topics presented in our 2 volumes, it seems right to explain, what the authors wanted to give as the panorama of problems, topics, methods and challenges.

Generally Volume 2 is dedicated to four complex challenges: disciplines/fields, intermediality/multimodality, translation and at last but not least didactics and methods. Of course, there is the paradigm of postmodernity, where it is no longer useful and ‘trendy’ to talk about the world being described in hard shaped discourses, but it just did not seem right, not to try to show the complexity and the difference both in science and research. In this deconstruction of methods and topics, there is a place, where different approaches can be presented by PhD students of European universities. As the conference was ←9 | 10→held in many languages, we decided to organize the papers by topics and not due to the language, the paper was submitted in, not by languages.

Disciplines/Fields

Afrodyta Weselak

Analysis of the Performance, Taking into Account the Purpose of its Presentation and Selection of Means of Implementation

Abstract: Performance, in its mixed attitude to politics, exposes dissent to the subordination of art to political and social norms, and implicitly uses tools that strongly correspond with it. This opposition, rebellion, shock, combined with the process of negating the positive value of politics, emphasizes how much has been lost from human life – freedom of the body and identification with this freedom. However, the performance, initially of a street character, guarding its negative attitude through the selection of place and means of expression, is now presented in museums and art galleries in the most prestigious and commercial way possible. Performance has become an attractive tool for making money.

Keywords: Abramović, performance, sexual violation, psychological borders, politics influence on art

1. Introduction

Praxis in the Athenian democracy, from which politics originated, was a type of human activity not oriented to the satisfaction of living needs.

As Anna Vujanović writes in her text On the politics of contemporary performance: „The disappearance of politics from the visual field means that political activities have become part of other social activities, from economics to culture and art”¹.

Hanna Arendt, reminded by her, noted that since the French Revolution, the politics focusing on social relations have moved closer to both the economic sphere and to private interests, which resulted in the loss of praxis.

On the other hand, Holmes, another performance researcher, writes: