Digital space, environment and performance in the Venetian context

Dimitrijević, Anja (author), Zajec, Urška (resume translator)

This contribution explores how artistic research can foster environmental awareness through engagement with aquatic geographies, focusing on the Venetian Lagoon. It argues that embodied and performative practices enable a situated mode of ecological understanding, in which bodily experience, site-specificity and sensory perception function as tools for interpreting environmental change. The text emerges from the research project Repeating Eutrophia (2019–ongoing), developed in collaboration with artist Laura Santini within the collective Confluenze. The project draws on the ecological concepts of eutrophia, understood as balanced nutrient conditions in aquatic ecosystems, and eutrophication, referring to nutrient over-enrichment leading to algal blooms, hypoxia and potential ecosystem collapse. “Repeating” indicates both the iterative structure of the artistic process and the cyclical dynamics of ecological transformation under investigation. Through performative experimentation, participatory actions and site-responsive practices, the project translates ecological processes into sensory experiences. Within this framework, performance operates as a methodological tool for sensing and articulating environmental change, complementing scientific modes of ecological observation. The project has developed through seven iterative episodes, each addressing the tension between ecological balance and excess through different artistic formats. While rooted in the Venetian Lagoon, Repeating Eutrophia operates as an open research structure that can be extended to other environmental contexts.

• Language: English
• Keywords: artistic research, aquatic ecologies, screendance, lagoon, embodied ecology
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: AGRFT - Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 01.01.2026
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 130-154
• Numbering: Letn. 14, št. 1
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-188389
• UDC: 792.01:793.3:004.8
• ISSN on article: 1855-4539
• DOI: 10.51937/Amfiteater-2026-1/156-178
• COBISS.SI-ID: 288579587
• Publication date in RUL: 22.09.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Amfiteater : revija za teorijo scenskih umetnosti
• Publisher: Akademija za gledališče, radio, film in televizijo, Društvo gledaliških kritikov in teatrologov Slovenije, Akademija za gledališče, radio, film in televizijo, Društvo gledaliških kritikov in teatrologov Slovenije, Akademija za gledališče, radio, film in televizijo, Slovenski gledališki inštitut, Slovenski gledališki inštitut, = Slovenian Theatre Institute, Založba Univerze v Ljubljani, = University of Ljubljana Press
• ISSN: 1855-4539
• COBISS.SI-ID: 239685632

Licences

• License: CC BY-SA 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
• Description: This Creative Commons license is very similar to the regular Attribution license, but requires the release of all derivative works under this same license.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Title: Digitalni prostor, okolje in uprizarjanje v beneškem kontekstu

Abstract

Prispevek proučuje, kako lahko z umetniškim raziskovanjem širimo okoljsko ozaveščenost, in sicer na področju vodne geografije z Beneško laguno kot središčem obravnave. Članek trdi, da utelešene in performativne prakse omogočajo lokacijski način razumevanja ekologije, pri čemer telesna izkušnja, lokacijska specifičnost (angl. site specificity – op. prev.) in čutno zaznavanje delujejo kot orodja za razlago sprememb v okolju. Besedilo izhaja iz raziskovalnega projekta Repeating Eutrophia (2019–), ki je nastal v sodelovanju z umetnico Lauro Santini v okviru kolektiva Confluenze. Projekt temelji na ekoloških pojmih evtrofije, opredeljene kot uravnoteženo stanje hranil v vodnih ekosistemih, in evtrofikacije, ki pomeni čezmerno obogatitev s hranili ter vódi do cvetenja alg, hipoksije in mogočega kolapsa ekosistema. Beseda »repeating« (angl. 'ponavljanje‘ – op. prev.) se navezuje na iterativno strukturo umetniškega procesa, pa tudi na ciklično dinamiko ekološke preobrazbe, ki je predmet raziskave. S performativnimi eksperimenti, participativnimi akcijami in prostorsko odzivnimi praksami se v projektu ekološki procesi prevajajo v čutne izkušnje. Uprizarjanje v tem okviru deluje kot metodološko orodje za čutenje in artikulacijo sprememb v okolju ter dopolnjuje znanstvene načine opazovanja ekološkega stanja. Projekt se je razvijal skozi sedem iterativnih epizod; vse so v različnih umetniških formatih obravnavale napetost med ekološkim ravnotežjem in presežkom. Čeprav so korenine projekta Repeating Eutrophia v Beneški laguni, deluje kot odprta raziskovalna struktura, ki jo je mogoče razširiti na druge okoljske kontekste.

• Keywords: umetniško raziskovanje, vodne ekologije, screendance laguna, utelešena ekologija