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LEIGH KOTSILIDIS
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Click images for details.
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Scientists for Love Scientific study, performance, participatory theatre 2013 (ongoing) Scientists for Love (SFL) is a Montreal-based organisation devoted to the advancement and study of love in all its forms. SFL creates events structured as scientific experiments that place focus on participant experience in order to facilitate connection between strangers. Head scientists, Leigh Kotsilidis and Amy Chartrand, blur boundaries between scientific study, performance art, and daily life to generate a unique approach to audience engagement. Scientists for Love has been making relational performances for nearly 10 years. In that time, SFL has developed and presented 3 major studies and many supporting field studies (smaller works that build up to a study). SFL’s most-produced study, Speed-dating for the Senses (and the sensitive), has seen 5 productions, including at Toronto’s Summerworks theatre festival. SFL also offered a French language and an LGTBQIA2S+ version. SFL’s most recent study, Constellations presented with Canadian Stage and developed in response to playwright Nick Payne’s play by the same name, was a sold-out debut in Toronto (1 night only, 100 people). NOTE: I am only providing installation details for 2 works in this portfolio. For further documentation of other SFL projects, please visit our website (URL below). Speed-dating for the Senses (and the sensitive), 2014-2017
An evening of experiments testing: hearing, sight, smell, taste, sight for compatibility Multiple productions held in Montreal and Toronto, Canada Duration: 4 hours Constellations, 2016 An evening of experiments testing: how awareness of the multiverse affects decision-making in the present (Experiments were created in reference to Nick Payne’s play, Constellations, about a relationship unfolding across the multiverse; and included experiments such as honey tasting, blindfolded readings, paper plane making, and gift giving.) Canadian Stage in Toronto, Canada Duration: 2 hours ALL EXPERIMENTS Speed-dating for the Senses (and the sensitive) – A social experiment with the senses, attraction, and 30 singles. 2014-17 Montreal, QC & Toronto, ON (SummerWorks, 2015) Intermission with Canadian Stage – An evening of experiments exploring parallel universes and agency. 2016 Canadian Stage, Toronto, ON McGill University Talk — Science Undergraduate Society of McGill University: Academic Week lecture series participatory presentation. 2016 McGill University, Montreal, QC Field Study: Data Pool, a public intervention – Participants were asked how they connect with people (touch, smell, taste, hearing, sight) and were assigned a colour based on their response. These colours were then a way to strike up conversation with strangers. 2015 SummerWorks Opening, Toronto, ON Field Study: Saliva Swap, a public intervention – In exchange for a swab of saliva, participants received someone else’s DNA and their phone number in exchange. 2015 SummerWorks Mixer, Toronto, ON Field Study: Complimentary Connections, a public intervention – SFL rode the Montreal metro giving out 100 cards for people to write down and pass along a compliment to stranger. 2015 Montreal Metro, Montreal, QC Sweet Nothings: Readings for one – An experiment in form and experience: personalised literary readings from Blue Met poets by phone, alone in a hotel room. 2014 Blue Metropolis Literary Festival, Montreal, QC Field Study: I hear you and I love you, a public intervention – Participants were asked to read a poem aloud to test whose voice resonated with whom. 2014 Casa del Popolo, Montreal, QC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYslHrFS5Fs OBSERVATIONS August 7, 2015; The Toronto Star, Find your soulmate – by sniffing their dirty T-shirt, Katrina Clarke March 16, 2015; CBC’s Wire Tap, The Dating Game, Jonathan Goldstein February 14, 2015; CBC’s Radio Noon, Interview with Mira Burt-Wintonick February 14, 2015; La Presse, Amour et Science: Speed Dating Scientifique, Philippe Mercure February 14, 2015; La Presse, Amour et Science: Les Dessous de L’Expérience, Interview with Philippe Mercure March 23, 2014; Maclean’s, Can we sniff out true love?, Lev Bratishenko Website: scientistsforlove.com |
