The Soup: Embodying Necropolitics

Abstract

My presentation during Performing Space 2025 focused on the audiovisual documentation of The Soup, a mixed-media performance which was staged on June 3rd at Fournos Lab, Athens. The performance engages with contemporary geopolitics and socio-economic structures, drawing theoretical grounding from Achille Mbembe’s Necropolitics (2019), which examines how power structures operate through the regulation of death and the subjugation of life. The performance sought to embody the conceptual tenets of Necropolitics by translating its theoretical implications into spatial and performative actions.

The Soup also explored the role of rituals in technologically mediated environments, proposing new forms of embodiment and audience engagement in the context of the present digital era. Central questions examined were: How might our perception of space and time be transformed through contemporary rituals? If rituals traditionally serve to anchor participants in the here and now (Turner, 1969), how is this immediacy maybe disrupted — or enhanced — by multimedia stimuli? Moreover, if audiovisual elements such as video projections serve as “openings to alternative spatiotemporal dimensions” (Manovich, 2001), what implications might this have for presence, participation, and immersion in live performance?

During the presentation, selected audiovisual excerpts from the performance were shown, illustrating how projection, sound, and spatial design had been used to construct a multi-layered performative environment aiming to activate a plethora of perception modes to the audience. Overall, the presentation aimed to reflect on the potential of interdisciplinary performance as both a creative and critical tool for engaging with urgent political realities and evolving modes of human experience.