Presence: A Conversation at Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich

Presence: A Conversation at Cabaret Voltaire, Zürich is not your traditional post-conference publication but conceived as a theatrical discourse of ideas on the subject of 'presence' both on- and offstage. In contrast to transcribed conversations, monologues--like small performative interruptions--are interspersed throughout this book of conversations amongst the symposium participants. The lively juxtaposition of both individual speech and colloquy is enhanced by theatrical conventions: characters enter and exit; stage directions mirror those found in Zürich s historical Cabaret Voltaire, a Dadaist stronghold in the early 20th century and now a visual arts center hosting conversations and symposia and where this event took place. Inspired by the writings of Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and Gernot Bohme on 'presence' as defined through various disciplines, participants and scholars from Europe and the US, including Amelia Jones, Michael Hampe, media theorists Tom Levin and Rebecca Schneider and Pritzker Prize winning architect Peter Zumthor, among others, explore what presence means in the 21st century.