The Phenomenology of Blood in Performance Art (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)

The Phenomenology of Blood in Performance Art is a major new publication that expands the philosophical contextualisation of blood, its presence and absence, across the practice of performance art from a phenomenological perspective.

Edited by T. J. Bacon (she/they) and Chelsea Coon (she/her), this book moves through an established cannon of artists and beyond to ensure an inclusive representation of practices from a wider range of practitioners. First-hand interviews and conversations have been gathered from both canonical names as well as individuals who are prevalent in their communities and/or respective subcultures, but less represented within the frameworks of scholarly discourse. Each offers the opportunity to examine their experiences creating artworks and in turn contributes to the context of phenomenological examination within this publication through complementary scholarly texts from leading thinkers who frame phenomenological application to both visual art and transdisciplinary context. Featuring artists through new exclusive interviews and contributions including Marina Abramović, Jelili Atiku, Ron Athey, Franko B, Niya B, Marisa Carnesky, Chelsea Coon, Victor Martinez Diaz, Rufus Elliot, Ernst Fischer, Louis Fleischauer, Poppy Jackson, Mirabelle Jones, Andrei Molodkin, Hermann Nitsch, ORLAN, Mike Parr, Greta Sharp, tjb and Paola Paz Yee, and reference to many more. Alongside new scholarly insight by leading phenomenological and interdisciplinary art scholars and philosophers including T. J. Bacon, Chelsea Coon, Stuart Grant, Kelly Jordan, Lynn Lu, Roberta Mock, Amber Musser and Raegan Truax. Together they represent a significant exploration of intricate and dynamic responses to the cultural fabric of contemporary lived experiences across space and time through the medium of blood in performance art.

This incredible analysis of this performance art will be of huge interest to students and practitioners of live art, performance art, phenomenology, and performance philosophy.

T. J. Bacon (she/they) publishing under the name T. J. Bacon and creating artwork using the moniker tjb, Dr Tōmei June Bacon is a trans-femme pansexual person with hidden disabilities. Her practice as an artist-philosopher foregrounds transgender studies and phenomenology, alongside queer theory, crip theory, disaster studies, and futures to consider visual art, performance art, activism and curation. She has exhibited internationally for over 20 years with a practice rooted in the elemental and esoteric. She is also the founder and artistic director of Tempting Failure, which produces and supports international visual art, performance art and sonic art. She is currently Resident Researcher at Guildhall School of Music and Drama (GSMD) London, PhD Advisor with the Trans Art Institute and PhD Supervisor with GSMD. She is the lead on the Queer Acts of Hope line of enquiry at the Guildhall De-Centre for Socially Engaged Practice & Research. She is the founder of the Trans+ Virtual Centre of Excellence, an international group of scholars who have formed an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research and advocacy group. This is her second major book about phenomenology and performance art. She lives and works in London.

Chelsea Coon (she/her) is an artist and writer whose work focuses on the shifting interconnections of the body, time, and space. She considers limits of the body and the enduring effects of frameworks as conceptual and literal forms that force the body to act and react through photography, video, performance, painting, sculpture, installation, and text. She has exhibited and performed extensively in galleries, biennales and festivals across North America, Europe, Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, South America, Australia and the Middle East. Recent solo exhibitions include Heavy Metal at Meno Parkas Gallery, Lithuania; The Probability of All Possible States of the System at Arka Gallery, Lithuania; and deathless at Galleri Kronborg, Norway. Chelsea Coon’s writings on contemporary art, performance and philosophy are included in experimental and academic publications, magazines, and journals in the US, the UK, Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore. She lives and works in Los Angeles.