Susan’s Ploetz’s residency explores the role of the occult and paranormal in the formation of media technologies and the intertwining of magic and the paranormal with technological advancements and world history in general, focusing on their significant roles in the events and technological advancements in the west during world war two and the cold war.
Susan will develop a new larp (live action role play) where the “audience” can become characters immersed in a co-created world shaped by the research of the residency: these larps will incorporate somatic practice, ritual, and radio and sound production technologies. Selected elements from the larp will be broadcasted on Cashmere in both live and prerecorded forms.
Susan Ploetz (US/DE) is an artist-researcher working with somatics, theory, writing, performance, sound, simulation and live action role plays (larping) in different configurations. Her work deals with the overlapping spaces of soma and technos; she uses imagination, magical materiality, and protocol to induce emancipatory emotive dissonances and perceptual expansion. She explores body-centered game design and narrative-building play as co-creative world-making that develops individual agency within spontaneous, ephemeral, decentralized communities.
She has presented work at such institutions as the Berliner Festspiele/Martin Gropius Bau, Oude Kerk, Sophiensaele, ABC Art Fair, Rupert, Documenta 13, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Aoyama Gakuin University, Unsound, and Performa. She has been a guest artist/teacher, lectured or given workshops at Universität der Kunst Berlin, Gerrit Reitveld Academie, Piet Zwart Institute, the DAAD, the Pervasive Media Studio (Bristol), SUNY Buffalo, ArtEZ, and the Dutch Art Institute.