International Forum on Artistic Research
17th Conference of the Society for Artistic Research (SAR)
Submission Number: 174
Submission ID: 226
Submission UUID: 57c9f4c7-44ff-4ddf-b6d1-bfa691a1d254

Created: Thu, 26 Feb 2026 - 09:28
Completed: Thu, 26 Feb 2026 - 09:58
Changed: Wed, 13 May 2026 - 08:12

Remote IP address: 119.12.217.1
Submitted by: Alexandra Harrison
Language: English

Is draft: No
Current page: webform_confirmation
Given name Alexandra
Surname Harrison
Email s3963130@student.rmit.edu.au
I understand that by submitting this form, I consent to the use of my data for the purposes of the 2026 Forum on Artistic Research'. Yes
I agree to the terms of service. Yes
Title The Song Of Rolling Solo
Format Performance
Main language English
Abstract Charting the movement of everyday encounters and gathering the hard evidence of our affective relations, The Song Of Rolling Solo is an expansive chronicle of a rolling nomadic sculpture, the Public Sphere, with its attendant archipelago of transcorporeal happenings. Interrupting the public’s fear with an antidote in the form of a homonym, the Public Sphere solicits a widened public imaginary. This closely observed account fathoms risk and heads out anyway, soliciting a continuous renewal of perspective and presence in an argument for becoming there, wherever there is.

The artist rolls the sculpture, "it’s the world", they say. The Sculptor’s Daughter pushes a meteorite through Helsinki, Maree rebuilds her life stone by stone, Pippa sets out in wedding dress, Stav the security guard steps in. Solos coalesce and reverberate in a contiguous litany of miracle, danger and sometimes ruin. The body is struck. The impossible ear heeds mumbles, rhythms and refrains, accumulating in a living archive of Blue Language: Orality as an outspoken literary event, movement as bodying text, becoming literal all the way.

Blue Language is a lively method, a speculative and affective play with composition and style, heeding Rosi Braidotti’s call for alternative, minoritarian figurations and conceptual personae (p. 34, 2019) and taking seriously Cixous’ declaration “Text: my body shot through with song” (p. 882, 1976). Blue Language invokes embodied and attentive presence, unstable and sensational, rooted and flowing, it is a method for negotiating intensities and composing the ineffable, together. Rest will be necessary but it’s okay, we will have choreographed it.

What if baroque new materialisms, in defiance of metaphor, ground us in the literal immanence of what bodies can do and what language can do? Worlds here and gone.
Image SB208258.jpg
Short biographies of the presenter(s)
  • Alexandra Harrison is an Australian-born anthropologist and artist who has practiced for 27 years. She has made visible lots of performance. Recently, Enim Dlog (reverse gold mining), We Pay To Be Where The Party Isn't (selling the promise of potatoes), charting The Difficult Come Down (lots of sweat), Cacophony (with many children in a forest) and Zoë (posthuman circus). Strange and special treasures disappearing into a past she can only glimpse. Today, she practices being the whale, rolling the Public Sphere and speaking Blue Language in the form of a PhD in Public Art. She knows there is no line really and yet she is following something. The list of people she would like to thank is very long and comes in the form of a prayer.
Previous presentations or iterations of the research This particular performance lecture is an original work that will appear in my PhD dissertation. It has had an initial outing in a skeletal form to a small PhD milestone audience.
Additional information The Song Of Rolling Solo is a 30 minute (full-bodied) performance lecture.
Spatial and technical requirements A clear space of approximately 4m x 6m would be ideal, but smaller is also perfectly workable. A sound system for amplified sound would also be needed. A sound operator is not required as the artist will manage cues within the context of the performance lecture. An open lighting state is all that is required, house lights are fine.
No projection, slides or other digital visual components accompany this project.
Potential risks or ethical concerns There are no ethical concerns or risks associated with this work.
Create a user account for SAR 2026 Yes
Create new user Alexandra Harrison