ECOPERFORMANCE AUDIOVISUAL ENTRE RIOS: CORPOREIDADE MAIS-QUE-HUMANA DE CORPO-RIO A CORPO-JUCU

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the interrelations among corporeality, ecoperformance, and the audiovisual, seeking to understand how ecoperformative practices can contribute to the creation of post-anthropocentric imaginaries amid the contemporary environmental crisis. It starts from the urgency of rethinking relations between humans and more-than-humans within the horizon of the Anthropocene, mobilizing art as a sensitive and political activation of other modes of existence. The path articulates performative and audiovisual practices that emerge from the body–environment relation, focusing on two rivers of Espírito Santo —Itapemirim and Jucu — and concentrates on the analysis of two works conceived within this research: CORPO-RIO and CORPO-JUCU. The methodological approach integrates Autoethnography, Somatic-Performative Research, and a view of the audiovisual as a somatic mediator and co-agent of dramaturgy, close to video-ecoperformance. The works are examined as aesthetic-political experimentations that activate haptic visuality, cinema of flow, kinaesthetic perception in screendance, and a cosmopolitics of the image, dissolving boundaries between body, nature, and technique and redistributing agency in the sensible field. Conceptually, the research updates the notion of ecoperformance and situates it vis-à-vis the disputes of the Anthropocene and proposals of making-with and response-ability, alongside a historical-critical reading of the event. The results point to the power of the audiovisual as an ethical-aesthetic mediator in ecoperformance, capable of activating modes of ecological perception and imagination that expand the performative experience beyond the space-time of live action. By making relations between bodies, rivers, and landscapes exist this dissertation proposes audiovisual ecoperformance as a practice that not only represents but also fosters sensitive alliances between human and more-than-human, contributing to the strengthening of critical imaginaries in the face of Anthropocene challenges. We take as our reflective horizon the set of theoretical contributions by the following authors: Maura Baiocchi and Wolfgang Pannek (2007, 2012, 2016, 2018, 2021, 2022, 2023); Ciane Fernandes (2013, 2014, 2018); Marta Bezerra (2011); Leonardo Paulino (2020); Gabriela Holanda (2019); Elizabeth Doud (2018, 2022); Éden Peretta (2005, 2007); André Lepecki (2012, 2013, 2017); Erin Manning and Brian Massumi (2014); Christophe Bonneuil and Jean-Baptiste Fressoz (2024); Stenio Marras and Renzo Taddei (2022); Jason W. Moore (2022); Bruno Latour (2020); Donna Haraway (2022, 2023); Anna Tsing (2019, 2020); Débora Danowski and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro (2014); Isabelle Stengers (2015, 2017, 2018, 2022); Ailton Krenak (2020a, 2020b, 2022); Inara Macedo (2015); Maria Cecilia Barbieri Gorski (2008); César Baio (2020); Sebastian Wiedemann (2020); Laura U. Marks (2000); Lilian Graça (2019); Erly Vieira Junior (2020, 2021).