Critical Studies in Television: The International Journal of Television Studies
Scholars of crime fiction continuously discuss what Nordic Noir series have in common, arguing th... more Scholars of crime fiction continuously discuss what Nordic Noir series have in common, arguing that it is a genre, a brand and a style respectively. Instead, this article explores Nordic Noir as an atmosphere, observed through the concept of stimmung, and argues that affective world-building in TV-series should be analysed beyond matters of style and narrative. Based on an analysis of The Bridge (2011–2018), the article discusses the aesthetic and critical potentialities of attuning oneself to the melancholic world of Nordic Noir and demonstrates that the affective quality of a series impacts how its themes can be read.
Scholars of crime fiction continuously discuss what Nordic Noir series have in common, arguing th... more Scholars of crime fiction continuously discuss what Nordic Noir series have in common, arguing that it is a genre, a brand and a style respectively. Instead, this article explores Nordic Noir as an atmosphere, observed through the concept of stimmung, and argues that affective world-building in TV-series should be analysed beyond matters of style and narrative. Based on an analysis of The Bridge (2011–2018), the article discusses the aesthetic and critical potentialities of attuning oneself to the melancholic world of Nordic Noir and demonstrates that the affective quality of a series impacts how its themes can be read.
Peripeti - tidsskrift for dramaturgiske studier 17(32), 2020
The 2018 performance The Hospital uses a combination of a tragic narrative structure and grotesqu... more The 2018 performance The Hospital uses a combination of a tragic narrative structure and grotesque slapstick and splatter to portray a nightmarish version of budget cuts and managerial reforms in the Danish public healthcare system. In this article, I focus on the affective dimensions of its bifurcal dramaturgy, and asks how it relates to the diagnosis of the efficiency dispositive in public management. I argue for an analytical approach that observes the entire performance as a ‘being of sensation’ (Deleuze and Guattari 1994) with its own affective logic, thereby switching analytical orientation from affective spectatorship to affective dramaturgy. I use genre analysis as a way to account for the performance’s way of becoming a body in terms of two interrelated affective dynamics: blocs of sensation and modes of relation. By employing Eric Bentley’s genre criticism as a semantic for describing the Hospital’s blocs and modes, I identify a double affective dramaturgy of tragic guilt and farcical aggression and schadenfreude, where open-ended aggression ultimately becomes the dominant bloc of sensation. Through a comparative gesture to the performance Living Dead, which unifies its narrative and affective elements in a horror aesthetic performing blocs of fear, I show how an affect-sensitive concept of genre can observe the relation between signifying and non-signifying elements as determined by a performance’s specific dramaturgy rather than by any a priori analytical distinctions.
Staging Spectators in Immersive Performances is a welcome addition to the growing body of scholar... more Staging Spectators in Immersive Performances is a welcome addition to the growing body of scholarly work focusing on artworks and artistic practices that immerse audiences in intimate and/or large-scale environments, which often require participation from spectators and tend to be situated outside of traditional theatre institutions and spaces. The anthology comprises an introduction followed by three main thematic parts on ‘Mobile Audiences’, ‘Researching Spectatorship’ and ‘Questions of Power’. Different theoretical, disciplinary and artistic ways of observing immersion co-exist and co-evolve within the book. By including a number of diverse perspectives from both scholars, artists, artistic contexts and disciplinary fields the anthology manages to provide new insights into the phenomenon of immersion while also critically reflecting the problems of the term as analytical and theoretical concept. By including reflections on both distanced and ludic modes of participation the anthology as a whole foregrounds the paradoxes inherent in both the staging of and participation in immersion as characterized by the simultaneous demands for illusionism and participation. With its focus on spectatorship, the anthology also manages to engage debates that have evolved within the ‘spectatorial turn’ in theatre studies more generally. However, the broad scope of the book also means that not all of the chapters actually draw on examples that would be considered typical for immersive theatre and performance. For some readers, who are primarily interested in the dramaturgy and staging strategies of immersive theatre, this might provide a point of frustration and for others, who are interested in spectatorship and participatory performance more generally, this will be the strength of the anthology.
Critical Studies in Television: The International Journal of Television Studies
Scholars of crime fiction continuously discuss what Nordic Noir series have in common, arguing th... more Scholars of crime fiction continuously discuss what Nordic Noir series have in common, arguing that it is a genre, a brand and a style respectively. Instead, this article explores Nordic Noir as an atmosphere, observed through the concept of stimmung, and argues that affective world-building in TV-series should be analysed beyond matters of style and narrative. Based on an analysis of The Bridge (2011–2018), the article discusses the aesthetic and critical potentialities of attuning oneself to the melancholic world of Nordic Noir and demonstrates that the affective quality of a series impacts how its themes can be read.
Scholars of crime fiction continuously discuss what Nordic Noir series have in common, arguing th... more Scholars of crime fiction continuously discuss what Nordic Noir series have in common, arguing that it is a genre, a brand and a style respectively. Instead, this article explores Nordic Noir as an atmosphere, observed through the concept of stimmung, and argues that affective world-building in TV-series should be analysed beyond matters of style and narrative. Based on an analysis of The Bridge (2011–2018), the article discusses the aesthetic and critical potentialities of attuning oneself to the melancholic world of Nordic Noir and demonstrates that the affective quality of a series impacts how its themes can be read.
Peripeti - tidsskrift for dramaturgiske studier 17(32), 2020
The 2018 performance The Hospital uses a combination of a tragic narrative structure and grotesqu... more The 2018 performance The Hospital uses a combination of a tragic narrative structure and grotesque slapstick and splatter to portray a nightmarish version of budget cuts and managerial reforms in the Danish public healthcare system. In this article, I focus on the affective dimensions of its bifurcal dramaturgy, and asks how it relates to the diagnosis of the efficiency dispositive in public management. I argue for an analytical approach that observes the entire performance as a ‘being of sensation’ (Deleuze and Guattari 1994) with its own affective logic, thereby switching analytical orientation from affective spectatorship to affective dramaturgy. I use genre analysis as a way to account for the performance’s way of becoming a body in terms of two interrelated affective dynamics: blocs of sensation and modes of relation. By employing Eric Bentley’s genre criticism as a semantic for describing the Hospital’s blocs and modes, I identify a double affective dramaturgy of tragic guilt and farcical aggression and schadenfreude, where open-ended aggression ultimately becomes the dominant bloc of sensation. Through a comparative gesture to the performance Living Dead, which unifies its narrative and affective elements in a horror aesthetic performing blocs of fear, I show how an affect-sensitive concept of genre can observe the relation between signifying and non-signifying elements as determined by a performance’s specific dramaturgy rather than by any a priori analytical distinctions.
Staging Spectators in Immersive Performances is a welcome addition to the growing body of scholar... more Staging Spectators in Immersive Performances is a welcome addition to the growing body of scholarly work focusing on artworks and artistic practices that immerse audiences in intimate and/or large-scale environments, which often require participation from spectators and tend to be situated outside of traditional theatre institutions and spaces. The anthology comprises an introduction followed by three main thematic parts on ‘Mobile Audiences’, ‘Researching Spectatorship’ and ‘Questions of Power’. Different theoretical, disciplinary and artistic ways of observing immersion co-exist and co-evolve within the book. By including a number of diverse perspectives from both scholars, artists, artistic contexts and disciplinary fields the anthology manages to provide new insights into the phenomenon of immersion while also critically reflecting the problems of the term as analytical and theoretical concept. By including reflections on both distanced and ludic modes of participation the anthology as a whole foregrounds the paradoxes inherent in both the staging of and participation in immersion as characterized by the simultaneous demands for illusionism and participation. With its focus on spectatorship, the anthology also manages to engage debates that have evolved within the ‘spectatorial turn’ in theatre studies more generally. However, the broad scope of the book also means that not all of the chapters actually draw on examples that would be considered typical for immersive theatre and performance. For some readers, who are primarily interested in the dramaturgy and staging strategies of immersive theatre, this might provide a point of frustration and for others, who are interested in spectatorship and participatory performance more generally, this will be the strength of the anthology.
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