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      Dr Josephine Machon

      ROLE: Associate Professor
      DEPARTMENT: Performing Arts
      TELEPHONE: +44 (0)20 8411 3401
      EMAIL: J.Machon@mdx.ac.uk
      1. Biography &
        Qualifications
      2. Learning &
        Teaching Interests
      3. Research Outputs &
        Interests
      4. Funded Research &
        Knowledge Exchange Projects
      5. Engagement &
        Impact

      • Biography &
        Qualifications

        Josephine Machon is writer and practitioner in contemporary performance and a Fellow of The Higher Education Academy. She joined Middlesex University's Theatre Arts team as Senior Research Fellow in Contemporary Performance in October 2012. Prior to this she was a Lecturer in Theatre at Brunel University, having come from St. Mary's University College where she was responsible for setting up and leading the Physical Theatre Programme - the first undergraduate degree of its kind in the South East of England.

        She is the author of Immersive Theatres: Intimacy and Immediacy in Contemporary Performance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), which received the prestigious award of Outstanding Academic Title in the CHOICE Awards, 2014 and (Syn)aesthetics – Redefining Visceral Performance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 2011).

        Josephine is Joint Editor of the Palgrave Macmillan Series, Palgrave Studies in Performance and Technology, which includes her co-edited collections alongside commissioned titles. She is on the Editorial Board for the International Journal of Performance Arts & Digital Media (IJPADM) and Brunel's Centre for Contemporary and Digital Performance online journal, Body, Space & Technology. Josephine's current practice-based research examines the role of the audience-participant in immersive experiences and involves partnerships with leading immersive practitioners Punchdrunk and Lundahl & Seitl. She is also collaborating on an interdisciplinary research project with Punchdrunk Enrichment examining the impact of its work in educational contexts.

        Qualifications

        • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
        • PhD in Contemporary Performance Practice, (Syn)aesthetics and Disturbance - tracing a transgressive style in contemporary performance practice, Brunel University
        • PGCert in Higher Education, Brunel University
        • PGCE in English and Drama, University of Nottingham
        • 1st Class BA Hons in Drama and English, St. Mary's College, University of Surrey

        Languages Spoken

      • Learning &
        Teaching Interests

        With years of experience in educational contexts, in Higher Education since 1997, Josephine is committed to the creative exchange that occurs within her undergraduate and post-graduate teaching and her research.

        General teaching and learning interests encompass:

        • critical approaches to contemporary performance and analysis, with emphasis on the ways in which theorising exists on the continuum of creative practice
        • performance and research led methodologies

        Specialist teaching interests include:

        • Experiential performance - practice and analysis
        • New writing in performance
        • Caryl Churchill - page, performance and appreciation
        • Naomi Wallace - page, performance and appreciation
        • The expressionist inheritance in contemporary physical & visual performance practice

        Josephine has supervised and examined a range of research degree students. She invites potential students, whether considering MPhil, Arts D or PhD, to discuss proposals for study in areas related to her own research interests, including Practice as Research projects.

        Current research supervision at Middlesex includes:

        Marisa Carnesky - The Incredible Bleeding Woman - The power of cultural representations of menstruation, pregnancy, fertility technologies and menopause on women's bodily perception.

        Stephen Fossey: Activating social space and performative practices

        Charlotte Nichol: BodyScreen and Performance Practices

        Eve Wedderburn: Kung Fu and Performer Training

      • Research Outputs &
        Interests

        Immersive Theatres, immediacy, intimacy and impacts: the audience experience

        Space and the senses – site-sympathetic work and the environment

        (Syn)aesthetics – experiential practice and audience processes

        Performance, experience and 'the visceral'; sensual approaches to performance practice and audience appreciation

        'Writings of the body': interrogations of embodied practice, the visceral verbal-playtext and technologies within playful performance encounters.

        Research Outputs


        Publications


        Sole-authored monographs:

        May 2013:Immersive Theatres: Intimacy and Immediacy in Contemporary Performance. Basingstoke & New York: Palgrave Macmillan. http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=575345

        September 2011 (paperback including new preface): (Syn)aesthetics Redefining Visceral Performance. Reprinted, with a new preface. Basingstoke & New York: Palgrave Macmillan ISBN: 978-0-230-33690-2

        June 2009:(Syn)aesthetics - Redefining Visceral Performance.Basingstoke & Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN:978-0-230-22127-7

        Edited Collections:

        August 2012: Ed. with Susan Broadhurst. Identity, Performance and Technology: Practices of empowerment, embodiment and technicity. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 9780230298880

        December 2009 (Paperback reprint, Oct 2012): Ed. with Susan Broadhurst. Sensualities/Textualities and Technology: Writings ofthe Body in21st Century Performance. Basingstoke & NY: Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN: 978-0-230-22025-6

        October 2006 (Paperback reprint, May 2011): Ed. with Susan Broadhurst. Performance and Technology - Practices of Virtual Embodiment and Interactivity. Basingstoke & NY: Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN: 9781403999078

        Sole-authored Chapters in Books:

        Forthcoming, 2015: .'Blind(fold)ed by Light in Lundahl & Seitl's Symphony in a Missing Room:' (Working title). Theatre in the Dark (working title) Eds. Adam Alston and Martin Welton. London & New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

        Forthcoming, 2015: 'Audience improvisation in the Immersive Experience', Oxford Handbook of Improvisation in Dance. Eds. Vida Midgelow and Courtney Hopf. Oxford: OUP.

        Forthcoming 2015: 'Immersion, Intimacy and The Pleasure of Being: Washing, Feeding, Holding', Framing Immersive Theatre and Performance: The Politics of Participation. Ed. James Frieze. Basingstoke & New York, Palgrave Macmillan.

        Forthcoming, 2015: 'Punchdrunk', British Theatre Companies: Volume 3 1995-present. Volume Editor. Elizabeth Tomlin.  Series Editors Graham Saunders and John Bull. London: Methuen Drama (Bloomsbury).

        November, 2013: '(Syn)aesthetics and Immersive Theatre: embodied beholding in Lundahl & Seitl's Rotating in a Room of Moving Images', in Affective Performance and Cognitive Science: body, brain and being. Editor. Nicola Shaughnessy. London: Methuen Drama (Bloomsbury).

        December, 2013:'Immersed in Illusion, Haunted by History: Marisa Carnesky's Ghost Train' in The Ashgate Research Companion to Sociocultural Studies of the Paranormal. Eds. Professor Sally Munt & Olu Jenzen. London: Ashgate.

        October, 2013:'Naomi Wallace and the Politics of Desire' , The Innovative Theatre of Naomi Wallace: Embodied Dialogues. Eds. Erica Stevens Abbitt & Scott Cummings. New York: Palgave Macmillan.

        August, 2012: 'Embodied Identities in the work of Marisa Carnesky', Identity, Performance and Technology: Practices of empowerment, embodiment and technicity. Eds. Susan Broadhurst and Josephine Machon. Palgrave Macmillan.

        December, 2009: '(Syn)aesthetic Writings: Corporeal Textualities and the Rebirth of Text', Sensualities/Textualities and Technology: Writings ofthe Body in21st Century Performance. Eds. Susan Broadhurst and Josephine Machon.

        Reports:

        November 2014. Punchdrunk Enrichment Preliminary Report. Report authored by Josephine Machon and Charlotte Thompson. Principal researchers: Josephine Machon, Nicola Stammers, Charlotte Thompson (Theatre Arts, School of Media & Performing Arts, Middlesex University). Commissioned by Pete Higgin, Director of Punchdrunk Enrichment. Available from Punchdrunk on request: http://punchdrunk.com/enrichment

        Selected Articles:

        May 2007: 'Space and the Senses: the (syn)aesthetics of Punchdrunk's  site-sympathetic work', Body, Space, & Technology. Volume  8. Brunel University Centre for Contemporary and Digital Performance. ISSN: 1470-9120. URL:  http://people.brunel.ac.uk/bst/vol08/home.html

        October 1999: with Paul Woodward. 'Do you know what we mean? The Documentary Body as the bridge between Arts and Social Sciences', Not all the time . . .but mostly.  Nottingham: Nottingham Trent University. ISBN: 0-905488-59-8

        Selected Reviews:

        March, 2011: 'Review: 'Entangled: Technology and the Transformation of Performance by Chris Salter', Foreword by Peter Sellars' in Contemporary Theatre Review. Print ISSN: 1048-6801. Online ISSN: 1477-2264

        May 2009: 'Engaging Audiences – a cognitive approach to spectating in the theatre' by Bruce McConachie, 2008' in Participations – Journal of Audience and Reception Studies. Volume 6, Issue 1. ISSN 1749-8716

        Electronic Media

        2001: Interactive CD-ROM article: 'to Deliver Us from (Syn)aesthetics', Flesh & Text: Far Ahead Publications. ISBN: 1-84233057-8.

        Programme notes

        June 2013, 'Immersive, Immediate, Intimate: Punchdrunk'. Punchdrunk's The Drowned Man Programme Note, Temple Studios, London Street, Paddington, London. Produced in association with The National Theatre. July 2013 - present.

        June 2013. 'Punchdrunk's The Borough: Stand curious in a dream and hear those voices that will not be drowned…' Sixty-sixth Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts 7-23 June 2013. Produced in association with Aldeburgh Music.

        Keynote and Plenary papers delivered:

        November 5 2014:. Keynote paper. Space and Place in Immersive Theatre Central St. Martins, Granary Building, Kings Cross.

        July 12 2014: Audio-installation keynote paper.' Blind(fold)ed by Light in Lundahl & Seitl's Symphony in a Missing Room: Thinking Out Loud in the Dark', Theatre in the Dark. One day symposium, University of Surrey, SeedPOD Nodus Centre.

        October 9 2013 'A conversation about theatre as conversation' with Gareth White. Royal Central School of Speech & Drama, University of London. Co-hosted by the Theatre Applied: Centre for Research in Performance & Social Practice

        18 May 2013: Panel Chair and Plenary Speaker. ON COLLABORATION II – The Politics of Collaboration Symposium, Middlesex University, Hendon.

        April 25 2013: Keynote 'On being Immersed'; and Guest speaker: Adrian Howells & Josephine Machon in conversation', Theatre Studies Research Seminar Series, Gilmorehill Centre, University of Glasgow.

        March 15 2013: '(Syn)aesthetics and Performance: The (Syn)aesthetics of Lundahl & Seitl's Rotating in a Room of Images' Hosyed  by The Resaerch Centre for Cognition, Kinesthetics & Performance, Studio 2, Jarman Building, University of Kent, Canterbury.

        November 30 2012: Keynote, 'Immersive Theatres - intimacy and immediacy in contemporary performance', Performance and Immersion Research Symposium, Alec Clegg Studio, University of Leeds.

        December 8-9 2011: Plenary paper, 'Immersed in Illusion: Marisa Carnesky's Ghost Train', Staging Illusion: Digital and Cultural Fantasy, International Conference, University of Sussex.

        October 2010: Keynote, 'Performance, Communication and the Environment' at the Energy Efficiency and Sustainability in Practice Symposium: Brunel University's Institute for The Environment and Sustainability.

        Publication Feed

        Audience improvisation in the immersive experience: the sensuous world of the body in the work of Lundahl & Seitl

        Machon, Josephine (2019) Audience improvisation in the immersive experience: the sensuous world of the body in the work of Lundahl & Seitl. In: Oxford Handbook of Improvisation in Dance. Midgelow, Vida L. , ed. Oxford Handbooks . Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199396986 (Accepted/In press)

        The Punchdrunk encyclopaedia

        Machon, Josephine , ed. (2018) The Punchdrunk encyclopaedia. Routledge, London. ISBN 9781138556782

        The aesthetics of immersion in Punchdrunk's The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable

        Machon, Josephine (2017) The aesthetics of immersion in Punchdrunk's The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable. In: Live Cinema: Cultures, Economies, Aesthetics. Atkinson, Sarah and Kennedy, Helen W. , eds. Bloomsbury Academic, London, pp. 219-230. ISBN 9781501324833

        Missing rooms and unknown clouds: darkness and illumination in the work of Lundahl & Seitl

        Machon, Josephine and Lundahl, Christer and Seitl, Martina (2017) Missing rooms and unknown clouds: darkness and illumination in the work of Lundahl & Seitl. In: Theatre in the Dark: Shadow, Gloom and Blackout in Contemporary Theatre. Alston, Adam and Welton, Martin , eds. Methuen Drama Engage . Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, London, pp. 147-168. ISBN 9781474251181

        Watching, attending, sense-making: spectatorship in immersive theatres

        Machon, Josephine (2016) Watching, attending, sense-making: spectatorship in immersive theatres. Journal of Contemporary Drama in English , 4 (1). pp. 34-48. ISSN 2195-0156

        View more publications

      • Funded Research &
        Knowledge Exchange Projects

      • Engagement &
        Impact

        Editorial and External Involvement:

        Joint Editor Palgrave Studies in Performance and Technology Series:http://www.palgrave.com/products/SearchResults.aspx?s=PSPT&fid=9267

        Editorial Board for the International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media: http:// http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-Journal,id=120/view,page=3/

        Ediitorial Board for Body, Space & Technology: http:// http://www.brunel.ac.uk/bst

        Member of the Trustees for Punchdrunk's Executive Board: http:// http://www.punchdrunk.com

        Director of the Board for Marisa Carnesky Productions: http:// http://carneskystarotdrome.com/marisa.html

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