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Creation/Research Support
God in Residency

There seems to be an intimate logical and conceptual association between “a role occupying its actor” in realistic performance and “a deity descending on a spirit medium” in religious belief. The two situations also suggest the mind-brain dichotomy, as if the body is a special medium that employs specific ways to invite different minds to enter it, hence different “identities.” However, where is the “self” and what form does it take at the moment when a mind “enters” the body? Can the body accommodate plural selves? If “performance” as “expertise” is systematic and teachable, does it imply that “deity possession” belongs to such kind of “expertise” as well? If we can develop the technique and methodology of deity possession through performance, maybe we will be able to allow everyone to directly “coexist with deities” through education in the near future, and turn the divine right from the privilege and resource exclusive to a specific group of people into the technique everyone can learn by being taught. The metaphor of “God in residency” is used to represent that a spirit medium serves as the short-term residence for a deity when the latter descends on the former. Is it possible for us to “liberate the divine right,” “coexist with deities,” and create a democratic world for the hybrid of “deity/humanity” by applying performance theories and empirical research? This project attempts to explore the connections among “human brain and neuroscience,” “spirit medium culture and performance,” as well as “performance approaches and techniques,” thereby discovering more ways to achieve “God in residency” within the realm of possibility.

CREATORS

HUANG Ding-Yun

Huang Ding Yun/ Taiwan Huang Ding-Yun is one of the co-founders of Taipei-based multi-creator collective, Co-Coism. Co-coism aims at work-in-collective, site-responding and interdisciplinary practices. They focus on creating a flexible relationship between the audience and the performers. Ding-Yun is also interested and active in the LGBTQ+ communitiy, exploring how to arrange projects in a queer methodology. Co-coism’s recent works are “Play God”, “Where is Ai-Guo Lin?”, “Walking to the Moon”, “Waiting for Godot”, “An Unidentified Dialogue”, "Between Meals" and "You Can Sleep Here". Other works directed by Ding-Yun include “”The Cinematic Duo“, ”CRISPR in the Intertidal Zone”, “Bit the Tongue”, “You Are Not Alone”, “Chaos in Chronicling”, “Teapot Storm”.