Gobsmacked: Getting speechless in performance

'Gobsmacked: Getting Speechless in Performance' was a one-day conference that took place at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) on 20 November 2010. Gobsmacked brought together leading performance practitioners and UK-based postgraduate students in order to explore the ways in which contemporary Live Art may elicit a failure of language. The potentials such a failure produces within cultural critique were also considered. Set within the context of a critical loss for words, Gobsmacked provided a platform for considering the intersections between making and experiencing, witnessing and writing. It also enabled the questioning of Live Art's developing position within the academy, and the impact of the academy on Live Art's subsequent historicisation. In this document the organisers of the conference offer reflection under the distinct themes of bodily interactions, covert subversions and the politics of institutions. They highlight the multiple intersections that occurred over the course of the day and connect to the broader contexts from which the work emerges. In particular, this reflection emphasises the ongoing impact of Live Art as a politically viable means of mediating and questioning the multiple silences that surround our lives.