Physical Co-presence Research Articles

A Report from the Field: Providing Psychoanalytic Care during the Pandemic

The disaster of the COVID-19 pandemic abruptly forced nearly the entire psychoanalytic community to move treatment, supervision, and classes online, leaving many feeling uncentered, unprepared, and vulnerable. The authors, members of the APsaA COVID-19 Advisory Team and longtime researchers in screen relations-based psychoanalytic care, recount lessons learned from their pandemic experience. As both disaster victim and mental health responder, they start with the cultural context for pandemic-specific mental health practice. Going deeper into the technological context for psychoanalytic care, they describe clinically-relevant differences between screen relations and physical co-presence, highlighting risk and trust, richness, and relational embodiment as key influences on clinical process and outcome. Common adaptions and responses that helped make pandemic-specific screen relations-based treatment work emerged from their own work and discussions and consultations with numerous colleagues. Curiosity, humility, clinical creativity, and self-care are highlighted. They close with hopes for a post-pandemic world in which we can mourn loss, reestablish trust, and renew and deepen our appreciation for relationships and intimacies only possible when we are bodies together in the same place at the same time.

Gottesdienst in ›Corona‹-Zeiten oder: Drei Variationen zum Thema Präsenz

Abstract The article focuses on liturgical questions caused by the Corona-pandemic and concentrates on the question of liturgical presence. For the Reformation, the presence of Christ/of God’s word and the presence of the congregation as an active subject in worship is central: Worship is all about the communio in a vertical and horizontal perspective and the participation of the whole congregation. Seen in this perspective, the discussion about the possibility of (Sunday) services in physical co-presence in 2020 was notably reduced. The article reflects (1) on bodily presence in digital contexts, (2) on the presence of the Church in the public sphere, and (3) on God’s presence in worship. The article aims to overcome dualistic concepts of ‘digital vs. analogue’ and reevaluate the chances of digital presence and physical co-presence in liturgical contexts.

Investigating Everyday Musical Interaction During COVID-19: An Experimental Procedure for Exploring Collaborative Playlist Engagement.

Musical Group Interaction (MGI) has been found to promote prosocial tendencies, including empathy, across various populations. However, experimental study is lacking in respect of effects of everyday forms of musical engagement on prosocial tendencies, as well as whether key aspects—such as physical co-presence of MGI participants—are necessary to enhance prosocial tendencies. We developed an experimental procedure in order to study online engagement with collaborative playlists and to investigate socio-cognitive components of prosocial tendencies expected to increase as a consequence of engagement. We aimed to determine whether mere perceived presence of a partner during playlist-making could elicit observable correlates of social processing implicated in both MGI and prosocial behaviors more generally and identify the potential roles of demographic, musical, and inter-individual differences. Preliminary results suggest that for younger individuals, some of the social processes involved in joint music-making and implicated in empathic processes are likely to be elicited even by an assumption of virtual co-presence. In addition, individual differences in styles of listening behavior may mediate the effects of mere perceived partner presence on recognition memory.

Aqu@teach—The First Aquaponics Curriculum to Be Developed Specifically for University Students

Aquaponic food production requires a broad spectrum of knowledge in order to understand and manage the processes involved, and for commercial aquaponics to develop its full potential, it will require an appropriately trained workforce. Devised in collaboration as an Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership for Higher Education, Aqu@teach covers the basics of aquaponics with a focus on transferable and entrepreneurial skills. The aquaponics curriculum can either be taught using blended learning—combining digital media and the internet with classroom formats that require the physical co-presence of the teacher and students—or as an e-learning course. The supplementary entrepreneurial skills module was devised on the basis of two surveys: of aquaponics companies around the world, in order to get a broad overview of the skills that are important in the early years of a business; and of European higher education institutions that teach subjects where aquaponics could be incorporated as an optional module. The entrepreneurial skills curriculum introduces the main processes involved in developing a business idea into a start-up company. All of the Aqu@teach resources—the e-learning modules, textbooks, module guides for students, curriculum guides for teachers, best practice guide for teaching aquaponics, and toolbox of innovative didactic practices—are open access.

The Good Neighbours: Words and Images in the Ms. 3368 of the Sainte Geneviève Library in Paris

The essay aims to explore some historical-conceptual junctures of the Early Modern literary culture, starting from the perspective of the meeting and interaction between words and images in the physical space of a manuscript and in the conceptual space of a mnemotechnical treatise. Therefore the article describes a richly illustrated manuscript of the Parisian library of Sainte-Geneviève (ms. 3368), which contains an Italian treatise on the art of memory from the mid-15th century. The semiotic, rhetorical and cultural strategies mobilized by the physical co-presence of a text and its figurative translation represent in fact the core of every mnemonic process. The illustrations visualize the result of the associative process that enables remembrance, whilst the text follows and breaks down the process in a linear way, normally mentioning the res memorandae and then the image that has to be visualized in the mind.

Is my body out of date? The drag of physicality in the digital age

At the 2019 Body of Knowledge Conference at Deakin University, I presented the third episode of performance-lecture series ‘Is My Body Out of Date?’ in collaboration with Melbourne-based artists Bon Mott and Sean Miles. Punctuated by quotes and phrases from a range of theorists, writers and artists including Karen Barad, Caroline Bassett, Laboria Cuboniks, Ian McEwan, Oscar Wilde, Yon Heong Tung, ETA Hoffman, Gilbert Simondon, and my drag character #Sergina, the performance (struck) poses (around) the question of whether, in a world that is increasingly managed and experienced online, our bodies, as our primary mode of interaction, may be beginning to feel out of date. Is our desire for sweaty, messy, fleshy physical co-presence out of whack with the agility, efficiency and value of our algorithms? Performed live at a laptop with Mott and Miles as physical #BackupBodies for my own body that didn’t fly from London for ecological reasons, this physical/digital screenshare performance wove in video documentation from previous #Sergina performances in order to confuse and conflate what was happening now, and what already happened, what was live and what was pre-recorded. Here we played with issues of perception, presence, liveness and the fantasy of the (ex)changeability of identity and ‘drag’ (performance) of physicality within an ever-shifting media present. What follows is a visual essay constructed out of the digital remnants of the performance: a (trans)script, a screen recording, screenshots and links to media located beyond the template of the text. The visual essay touches on key conference themes such as virtual embodiment, human/computer interaction, temporal coupling and time consciousness, knowledge-transfer and how technology affects the way we move, think and desire. Furthermore, the templates of Zoom video communications, of the laptop screen, of Chrome and the wider digital/physical conference model that hosted, directed (and dictated) the boundaries of our presentation reflect on the influence of design, layout and digit/al choreographies on the shaping and ordering of thought, knowledge and embodiment.

Is my body out of date? The drag of physicality in the digital age

At the 2019 Body of Knowledge Conference at Deakin University, I presented the third episode of performance-lecture series ‘Is My Body Out of Date?’ in collaboration with Melbourne-based artists Bon Mott and Sean Miles. Punctuated by quotes and phrases from a range of theorists, writers and artists including Karen Barad, Caroline Bassett, Laboria Cuboniks, Ian McEwan, Oscar Wilde, Yon Heong Tung, ETA Hoffman, Gilbert Simondon, and my drag character #Sergina, the performance (struck) poses (around) the question of whether, in a world that is increasingly managed and experienced online, our bodies, as our primary mode of interaction, may be beginning to feel out of date. Is our desire for sweaty, messy, fleshy physical co-presence out of whack with the agility, efficiency and value of our algorithms? Performed live at a laptop with Mott and Miles as physical #BackupBodies for my own body that didn’t fly from London for ecological reasons, this physical/digital screenshare performance wove in video documentation from previous #Sergina performances in order to confuse and conflate what was happening now, and what already happened, what was live and what was pre-recorded. Here we played with issues of perception, presence, liveness and the fantasy of the (ex)changeability of identity and ‘drag’ (performance) of physicality within an ever-shifting media present. What follows is a visual essay constructed out of the digital remnants of the performance: a (trans)script, a screen recording, screenshots and links to media located beyond the template of the text. The visual essay touches on key conference themes such as virtual embodiment, human/computer interaction, temporal coupling and time consciousness, knowledge-transfer and how technology affects the way we move, think and desire. Furthermore, the templates of Zoom video communications, of the laptop screen, of Chrome and the wider digital/physical conference model that hosted, directed (and dictated) the boundaries of our presentation reflect on the influence of design, layout and digit/al choreographies on the shaping and ordering of thought, knowledge and embodiment.

‘15 Days to Slow the Spread’: Covid‐19 and Collective Resilience

‘15 Days to Slow the Spread’: Covid‐19 and Collective Resilience

‘It’s difficult to help when I am not sitting next to them’: How COVID-19 school closures interrupted teachers’ care for newly arrived migrant and refugee learners in Denmark

ABSTRACT Teachers play a critical role in providing social and emotional support for newly arrived migrant and refugee learners. Such care ordinarily takes place in the classroom, raising questions about the impact of the 2020 COVID-19 school closures on their care work. In this article we analyze qualitative data from phone interviews with eight teachers in Danish preparatory classes, paying particular attention to the challenges they faced staying in contact with, and supporting, migrant and refugee learners during the school closure. The interviews were coded and thematically analysed, revealing significant changes in the teachers’ care work. We draw on the concepts of caringscapes and carescapes to unravel how the shifts in space, from physical copresence in the school classroom to distance learning, affected their care work. Despite many efforts, teachers reported difficulties staying in contact with the learners remotely due to their limited access to virtual communication platforms and language barriers. These communication difficulties and the lack of bodily copresence not only made teaching highly challenging, but interrupted their care work, including maintaining daily schedules and facilitating social closeness between learners. Furthermore, the teachers expressed concern about their inability to link and refer the most vulnerable learners to external support services, which were temporarily closed due to the societal lockdown. Our study highlights how COVID-19 induced school closures constrain the care work of teachers of migrant and refugee learners. The concerns and struggles raised in this article not only stress the importance of the physical school space and closeness in facilitating care for newly arrived migrant and refugee learners, but signal the vulnerabilities of this group of children during times of crisis.

Art markets in crisis: how personal bonds and market subcultures mediate the effects of COVID-19.

We examine how the contemporary art market has changed as a result of the disruptions caused by the novel coronavirus. Based on interviews with artists, collectors, a dealer, and an auction house executive, we argue that the decline of face-to-face interaction, previously essential to art market transactions, has placed strain on each corner of the community. In the absence of physical co-presence with the artworks and art world actors, participants struggle to evaluate and appreciate artworks, make new social ties, develop trust, and experience a shared sense of pleasure and collective effervescence. These challenges especially impact the primary gallery market, where participants emphasize a communal commitment to art above instrumental speculation, which is more accepted in the secondary auction market. We find a transition to distant online communication, but the likelihood of this continuing after the lockdowns end and the virus dissipates varies according to the subcultures of these market segments.

Ethical Performance of Autobiography in Vicky Foster’s Bathwater on Stage, on Air, and in Print

ABSTRACT This article explores Vicky Foster’s Bathwater in its three formats of stage production, radio play, and book as an example of ethical autobiographical performance. Foster’s narrative is concerned with her experiences of an abusive domestic relationship and her efforts to care of her child. The material is characterised by a dual perspective in which the autobiographer-performer and an actor embodying the author’s son speak to the audience. The analysis makes use of discourses on liveness in performance studies, Susan Bennett’s understanding of the body as an archive of experiences in autobiographical performance, and Deirdre Heddon’s research into ethical performance practices. It highlights the respective merits of the three media formats chosen by Foster: the physical co-presence of the autobiographer-performer with a theatre audience, the sole focus on voice and sound on the radio, and the relative durability and reach of printed books. The conclusion argues that the three versions of Vicky Foster’s Bathwater balance the demands of truthfulness and artfulness towards autobiographical performance utilising the specific communicative set-up of each media format.

MEDIATED INTERACTION RITUALS: A GEOGRAPHY OF EVERYDAY LIFE AND CONTENTION IN BLACK LIVES MATTER*

The Movement for Black Lives has connected millions of people online. How are their outrage and hope mediated through social media? To address this question, this article extends Randall Collins’s Interaction Ritual Theory to social media. Employing semisupervised image recognition methods on a million Instagram posts with the hashtag #blacklivesmatter, we identify four different interaction ritual types, each with distinct geographies. Instagram posts featuring interactions with physical copresence are concentrated in urban areas. We identify two different types of such areas: arenas where contention plays out and milieus where movement identities are affirmed. Instagram posts that do not feature physical copresence are more geographically dispersed. These posts, including memes and selfies, allow people to engage with the movement even when they are not embedded in activist environments. Our analysis helps to understand how different forms of engagement are embedded in particular places and connected through the circulation of social media posts.

Broadening Our Senses: The Aesthetics of Online MBA Studio-Based Education

Drawing from the traditions of arts, craft and aesthetics, both organizations and business schools are ‘broadening their sights’ to studio practices for creative and innovative ways to enhance knowledge. Studio methods engage participants in collaborative artistic methods that involve materializing artifacts to generate new perspectives on management and organizational issues. Research is needed to complement the growing interest in studio activities. This paper suggests that the field of organizational aesthetics opens up nuanced philosophical, theoretical and practical understandings on studio-making practices. Since ‘business studios’ are typically based on assumptions of physical co-presence, virtual studio inquiries require ‘broadening our senses’. The current study explores my own experimentation with online MBA studio practices. Studio accounts from two online Organizational Behavior course iterations are studied through the lens of aesthetics. Excerpts from students’ accounts reveal both artistic-aesthetic challenges and ‘learning-by-making’ insights associated with virtual studio-based management education. Practical implications, conference theme connections and suggestions for future research are considered.

Interaction rituals and ‘police’ encounters: new challenges for interactionist police sociology

ABSTRACT Interactionist police sociology is in need of revision and extension in the face of profound change in policing, society, and in the very nature of ‘interaction’. The argument draws upon interaction ritual theory, a micro-sociological perspective that explores social life, and feelings of belonging and solidarity, as outcomes of encounters between people. Two tenets of the theory – that successful encounters produce emotional energy that creates bonds of solidarity, and that they require physical co-presence of human participants to work in this way – are being revised in the light of new empirical work exploring interaction with ‘others’ in a variety of new forms. The effect of this work is to provoke reassessment of what ‘counts’ as an encounter and to question the nature and sources of solidarity in an age when face-to-face physical co-presence is in decline. These features of interaction ritual theory are developed through three purposively-selected, illustrative applications of it to policing: police as reproducers of order; policing as information brokering; and, the changing landscape of security encounters. The article opens up new questions and objects of study for interactionist police research that are fit for the empirical realities of contemporary policing.

Remote Working during the Pandemic: A Q&A with Gillian Isaacs Russell

In this interview by email, Gillian Isaacs Russell, author of the influential Screen Relations: The Limits of Computer‐Mediated Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, responds to a set of questions from the BJP. The interview focuses on the impact of remote working during the coronavirus epidemic, starting with the question of whether an effective therapeutic process can occur without physical co‐presence. Isaacs Russell shares her immediate thoughts about the virtually overnight changes to our practice that came with the epidemic, and the work of the American Psychoanalytic Association's Covid‐19 Advisory Team, on which she sits. Her responses are informed by recent cross‐disciplinary and neuropsychological research on the digital age. She considers what happens to free association, evenly suspended attention and reverie when working by phone or online; the loss of the consulting room as a containing physical space for both clinician and patient; the relationship between place and time; and whether (and how) we can maintain a focus on transference and countertransference in the presence of the threat of death. The interview ends with her thoughts on whether we should assume that the landscape of analytic therapy will be permanently altered by Covid‐19, and with her hope that general awareness of the impact of trauma on our mental health has been raised.

Editorial – Mutually holding on in critical times

Dear readers, students, fellow scholars, welcome to this eighth instalment of Mutual Images. A friendly greeting to readers and fellow scholars I have been slowly putting this Editorial together, one small piece at a time, between March and June 2020, while being, like you all, focussed on rather bigger matters. Not only I, as the composer of this Editorial, but all the members of our journal’s Boards want to express our sincere appreciation and affectionate friendship to our academic community, regardless of field and discipline. Since January 2020, we have been living in a weird and dramatic moment, and the social sciences and the humanities as a whole, although technically much more fortunate than many other professional categories, are scholarly, collectively, and privately touched by the current pandemic at several levels. We cannot travel to join conferences or workshops as we would like, and in many cases we cannot visit our loved ones if they happen to live in another country; we cannot easily (or we cannot at all) move around if we had planned some fieldwork; we cannot even take a normal walk in our neighbourhood or go to the grocery store without the fear of being infected, or of infecting someone else if we are unaware carriers of this insidious virus—to this end, the use of the sanitary mask is saving millions of lives, even though there are egotistic brain-dead individuals everywhere who challenge this elementary precaution. But as researchers, as academics, our productivity does not necessarily depend on being out there, and in this sense we are hugely privileged. We can still write, investigate, study, read, communicate, teach, help our students to learn and grow, and somehow cheer them up, because they also have been stuck at home at an age in which the physical co-presence of peers is of paramount psychological relevance. It is therefore [...]

Gender, love and the Internet: romantic online interactions in Chilean young people

ABSTRACT Romance in modern societies is undergoing a two-fold process of transformation: on the one hand, traditional gender relationships are being revised and criticized; on the other, new digital communication technologies are making possible to initiate, sustain and end romantic relationships through a set of practices that mix physical co-presence and online interactions. Using a qualitative approach (N = 48), this paper explores how young people (ages 18–29) in Chile conceive of romantic relationships in this social and technological context. Our results show that romantic relationships are a significant terrain in which gender is negotiated through digitally mediated practices of courtship and maintenance of established romantic relationships. These mirror the power dynamics involved in the existing gendered normativity, but also provide some leeway to transform it, depending on the resources that individuals bring to the technological milieu.

From the Editors of the Special Reviews Section: Shakespeare in Lockdown

Reviewed by: From the Editors of the Special Reviews Section: Shakespeare in Lockdown Peter Kirwan and Erin Sullivan Partway through preparing this issue of Shakespeare Bulletin, the world's theaters went dark. As countries around the world imposed social distancing measures designed to slow the spread of COVID-19, theaters cancelled productions, tours, and rehearsals. At the time of writing (June 2020), it is still unclear when—indeed, if—anything approaching a "normal" theater industry might resume operations, and whether theater institutions (especially those without public subsidy) will be able to survive the disruption. The response of theaters was, understandably, to remind the world that they still existed. From March 2020, the explosion of online theater introduced audiences around the world to a startling variety of productions, with Shakespeare central in programming. For larger institutions—the Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare's Globe, the National Theatre, Stratford Festival, Berliner Ensemble, the Schaubühne, and many more—back catalogues of professionally recorded material were quickly made available for free in time-limited releases, with donations urgently requested. (Among the many questions raised by this model was that of how artists were being compensated for the re-use of their labour. In May 2020, the National Theatre confirmed that it would be offering artists payment for the broadcast of shows they had participated in [BBC].) The sudden global availability of archival content explodes conventional understandings of the temporally complex status of past productions, with live events coalescing around historical material, and surprising treasures (a 1957 Berliner Ensemble performance of Mother Courage starring Helene Weigel) sitting alongside recent productions. But at the same time, companies—often small, even newly formed ones—also began developing new, designed-for-online content. Gemma Allred and Benjamin Broadribb helpfully identify two different primary modes: the "Live Online Performance" in which a live performance is recorded through videoconferencing software, and then made available [End Page 489] online either in real-time, after the fact, or both, with donations solicited via Patreon or similar; and the "Virtual Theatre Performance" in which a one-off event happens via an online platform that allows performers and audiences to share presence, usually with paid entry (Allred and Broadribb 2020). Some of these projects, such as The Show Must Go Online, which mounted weekly stagings of Shakespeare, became regular fixtures in lockdown theater schedules; others, such as the Oxford-based Creation Theatre's Zoom Tempest, became the stuff of international news (Pellerin 2020). Across all of these different forms of theater event was an attempt to recapture some of the key values of live theater, both to serve what was clearly felt to be a need among isolated populations around the world, and also more pragmatically to shore up the future of theater by insisting on its unique selling point. As Alexis Soloski argued, "this explosion of online Shakespeare is less about Shakespeare and more about the feeling of virtual community that the shared knowledge of the works enables" (Soloski). But this was no utopian sharing. The extraordinary "Read for the Globe" project, put together as a fundraiser in a few days in response to Shakespeare's Globe publishing a stark warning about its future, saw brilliant performances from professional and amateur actors connected online, reading sixteen plays in forty-eight hours; but the celebratory air was underpinned by the specter of potential loss. And watching professional-quality productions without the physical co-presence of fellow audience members was, as some of the contributors to this special section argue, as much a reminder of what was missing as a celebration of what was present. The emotional impact for both theaters and audiences of trying to wrangle with what theater is in the age of COVID-19 is very real. Simon McBurney, artistic director of Complicité, recorded a new introduction to the previously released live capture of his solo show The Encounter, playing with technology to place a 2020 version of himself into the audience of a 2016 performance at London's Barbican, before standing up and tearing down a green screen in his living room and addressing himself to the camera. "In this period of confinement, we're not just asking when it will...

Discussing The Use of Public Goods for Private Ends

How to make sense of the face-to-face public discussion of the distribution of public funds? In this article, I argue that physical co-presence of citizens in course of collective deliberation gives the underrepresented social groups opportunities to speak out their concerns and express their social positions. In a discussion that I co-organised with support of a few local cultural organisations, participants faced a possibility to practice critical debates regarding the decisions of the municipal, regional and central authorities. I present a case study that contributes to the literature by describing the “openings” in public indifference that have implications for practice and policies. I reflect on the public discussion as an opportunity to engage into a dialogue a general public, activists, scholars, officials and experts and imagine alternative ways for democratic deliberation. This article links together the problems of distribution of public goods and engaging public into the organisation of mega-events in the light of the predicaments of the capitalist urban development.

Overcoming remoteness: the necessity of air travel in Australian universities

ABSTRACTAir travel has become central to Australian academic practice, with flying increasingly seen as crucial to the progression of successful academic careers. This paper seeks to understand why academic air travel has come to be perceived as so necessary, particularly given its significant environmental, social, and economic implications. Drawing on the mobilities paradigm and social practice theory, we seek to understand how air travel practices are a key part of contemporary academic careers. We conducted an online survey of 301 academics and 24 in depth semi-structured interviews to understand academic air travel in Australia, finding that it is seen as a means to connect and collaborate within and between academic communities, and to counteract the effects of ‘remoteness'. This remoteness is experienced domestically and internationally, by Australian academics who feel they must travel to perceived centres of knowledge production to further their careers. Academics often frame their ‘need' for connections as necessarily involving physical co-presence. Air travel offers career benefits for those who can take advantage of it, and corresponding drawbacks for those ‘stuck on the ground’. We conclude by discussing the need for valuing localised forms of collaboration as markers of success, and developing imaginative alternatives to academic flying.