The Agency of Things: Collaboration With The Chair / Kilta Rainprechter (2024)

The Practice-as-Research inquiry The Agency of Things: Collaboration With The Chair carried out by Kilta Rainprechter investigates whether the agency of matter, as advocated by proponents of new materialism (Barad, 2007; Bennett, 2010; Braidotti, 2013; Morton, 2016), can enable humans to collaborate with more-than-human entities in a non-hierarchical manner, resulting in mutual artistic creation. The research centers on the intra-action (Barad, 2007) between The Chair, a traditional English rush-seated chair, and Rainprechter, a German dancer and choreographer, with the goal of collaboratively creating and performing a duet. The specific research objectives are to identify and develop potential modes of communication between Rainprechter and The Chair to foster mutual understanding, thereby enabling equitable negotiation in artistic and creative decision-making. Moreover, the inquiry explores how to balance the presence of the human performer with that of the more-than-human entity, aiming to equalize the subject-object dynamic for the audience. Key themes such as equality, presence, resonance, and touch emerged from the practice and were both practically and theoretically examined, generating methods for potential understanding between humans and more-than-human entities. The final presentation of the duet, choreographed and performed by The Chair and Rainprechter, was held at the Laban Theatre in London, and is accompanied by this written thesis.