Epistemologias da Documentação de Formas de Afeto e Devir nas Manifestações Culturais em Performance (1969-1979)

RESONANCE aims to analyse the ways in which performance-based cultural manifestations, such as experimental theatre, experimental music, performance, new dance, etc., produced during the decade leading to and of the Portuguese 1974 Carnation Revolution (1969-1979) have been, and can be, re-enacted, documented, and remembered. RESONANCE will be the first study to systematically explore the performance ecologies from the late 60s and 70s in Portugal across artistic genres. Proposing new epistemological frameworks and methodologies for the conservation of these works will address a gap in the state-of-the-art particularly related the conservation, archiving, documentation, and memorialisation of performance deemed time- and/or site-specific, like the ones created in Portugal in the 60s and 70s. Informed by and in response to affect theory, RESONANCE will propose both an epistemological framework and a set of methodologies to inscribe the memories and a/effectively and affirmatively materialise these performances. This epistemological inquiry departs from the typical research milieu of conservation - the museum - to dig where those performance practices, as practices in performance, stand: the intra-agential relational network of grassroots organisations, community organisers, activist groups, individual artists and their own ecologies. This ecological approach to the conservation of these cultural manifestations considers the affect as the mesh that intra-connects these works, the actors that participate therein, and the various relationships that are created, or we could say, that resonate across temporal moments. Here we draw on Deleuze and Guatarri (1987) first not only to notarise this approach, but also to underline the methodological vocabulary of RESONANCE: we consider these artistic manifestations as being in process, or becoming, as Deleuze and Guatarri call it; we aim to propose new methods that recognise non-inscriptional knowledge, such as emotion (Ahmed 2004) or sensation (Massumi 2002); we will analyse the spatio-temporal resonances of these works through their affective landscape, as one that assembles cultural, emotional, social, and technological apparatus and dynamics. This theory-informed and politically-committed epistemological investigation will lead to theoretical frameworks, methodologies, and policy recommendations. Theoretical frameworks will allow for the development of a new critical lexicon for these memory practices as well as a redefinition of methodological standpoints. New methodologies will consist of significance assessments, stakeholder identification tools, and qualitative methodologies to produce and analyse documentation, addressing all three areas pertaining to the preservation of these works: archiving and cataloguing, conservation and re-enactment, and historical analysis and formal critique. These approaches will entangle with policy through particular changes specifically to cataloguing. RESONANCE's objectives are: 1. To map, historicise, and document key works created by artists and collectives across all areas of performance-based and the performing arts. 2. To develop a new epistemological framework to conserve and document performance-based manifestations across disciplines and time periods. 3. To create a methodological toolkit to understand and preserve these works and their memorialisation. 4. To promote these frameworks and tools in the creative industries through policy changes.