Aberystwyth student Daniel wins lecture award

Daniel Ladnar, PhD student in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies at Aberystwyth University, has won the prestigious Performing Science - Giessen Award for Scholarly Presentation and Lecture Performance 2011.
This honours innovative forms of knowledge presentation in any academic discipline.
The jury (which included leadings scholars from biology, literature, cultural theory and dance) awarded first prize to Daniel for his lecture performance, “Would Joseph Beuys Have Used PowerPoint?”.
Daniel, who is researching the role of the lecture performance in contemporary performance practice and theory under the supervision of Dr Heike Roms and Professor Adrian Kear and supported by a doctoral scholarship from Aberystwyth University, received prize money of €5,000.
“The Performing Science Award highlights that knowledge does not exist independently of the forms in which it is communicated”, commented Daniel.
“This aspect is also very important to my doctoral research, and I was honoured and delighted for my work to be recognised in this way.”
From more than 50 applications received from all over Europe and the USA, a shortlist of 10 was selected, which represented research in fields as diverse as medicine, chemistry, physics, engineering, theatre, visual arts and performance.
The shortlisted lectures were presented at a public event at Giessen University.
Daniel Ladnar is a performance maker and researcher based in Aberystwyth.
He is the co-founder of Random People, a platform for collaborative projects in the field of performance.
Random People has realised and presented work mostly in the UK, Germany and Austria. Daniel Ladnar studied Theatre, Film and Media Studies, Art History and German in Frankfurt am Main and has also completed an MA in Photography at Swansea Metropolitan University.
He is currently a PhD student at the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies at Aberystwyth University, where he is researching the role of the lecture performance in contemporary performance practice and theory.
The prize was awarded for the second time (following its launch in 2007) by the Center for Media and Interactivity of the Justus Liebig University, Giessen (Germany) with support from the Robert Bosch Foundation.
The Performing Science Award is given to a scholar/artist for outstanding achievements in scholarly presentation or lecture performance.
It is not simply the traditional experimental lecture which is of interest here, but first and foremost the following types of presentation:
o scholarly and artistic presentations which visualize research processes
o presentations involving new experimental procedures, e.g. simulations
o presentations in which content and form enter an experimental relationship which allows the audience to actually participate in the presented research
o presentations which take an experimental and artistic approach to using media and traditional forms of knowledge presentation
For further information, please visit: www.english.performingscience.de
Photograph: Copy of Daniel Ladnar’s work: “Would Joseph Beuys Have Used PowerPoint?”