The Anatomy of the Moment (launched in 2012 and funded by the Swedish Research Council) aims to research the possibilities for collaborations between dramatist, actors, composer, and musicians on the basis of the situation in the play.

Originally, in actors’ practice, the “situation” stands for the circumstances proposed for the character, both in a global perspective with a view to the play as a whole, and in the successive scenes. Thus also, the situation becomes the ground for the actor’s understanding of his/her lines and actions as the character.

It has turned out that this approach is not only useful for the actor’s work but also for the integration of other expressive means in the theatre performance. In this way, a leading idea for the research project is to create a living environment and a common ground for theatre work that transcends boundaries between different art forms.

Another aim is to find out points of contacts between artistic and scientific research. In this context contemporary cognitive science attracts particular interest, in the sense that theories in this field can help explain how artistic work can be a quest for knowledge in its own right.

The project is led by Jörgen Dahlqvist, Kent Olofsson and Erik Rynell, and includes a series of theatre performances, video installations and multimodal music/performance art.