Dr Josephine Machon

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.

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