MANIFESTO

The Institute for Performance and Film Expanded is a platform for non-disciplinary thinking. It brings together passionate scholars and artists working in theory and practice across disciplines and media. We share a common understanding of the ambiguous relationship of theory and practice and reflect on their complex inseparability.

​

The Institute for Performance and Film Expanded is not a collective. It is a matter of affinity rather than identity, of intellectual kinship rather than community, of longing rather than belonging. We form a many-voiced group of people who share discoveries and experiences with each other to transcend the individual and the particular in collaborative projects.

​

The Institute for Performance and Film Expanded is a concept and an action. It is nomadic and dynamic, without a fixed location. It is formed by people fascinated by unconventional thinking and experimental practices, open to nomadism both in the field of research and in relation to the places of their gathering.

​

The Institute for Performance and Film Expanded is not based in a specific space. It is situated: our experiences and explorations affect our thinking and inform our activities. The forms of research are diverse and of varying scales: symposia and working groups, performances and screenings, small exhibitions, curated talks, expanded walks, performative readings, writing workshops, on-site and online lectures.

​

The Institute for Performance and Film Expanded is an invitation to imagine and to experiment. By the notion of 'expanded', we propose a critical rethinking and transformation of the vocabulary and methodology used within performance and film. This includes the invention of concepts and practices, and the exploration of new approaches to these fields.

​

The Institute for Performance and Film Expanded does not think of performance and film as distinct disciplines. Nor is it interested in inbetweenness. We challenge binary concepts of liveness and mediation, presence and reproduction, bodies and technologies. We think in terms of apposition rather than opposition, and of entanglement rather than interrelationality.

​

The Institute for Performance and Film Expanded is a non-profit, self-organised research space. It fosters collaboration and exchange among its members to support the visibility of their activities and projects. Emerging from a space beyond schemes and guidelines, it opens up new possibilities for thinking and research.