Tag: running-messenger
The ‘running messenger’ is an agitator of new discourses and new knowledge in their intellectual agility and crossing of disciplinary and cultural borders. It draws on the historical foot messenger. Before the advent of the Royal Mail, FEDEX or Twitter, there were ‘messengers constantly on the move’, covering 200 miles in 24 hours'( Gotaas 2009). They were esteemed not just for their physical and mental stamina, but how they were ‘well-travelled and knowledgeable’. They ‘crossed boundaries and had a great deal of contact with people of a higher social class’. Most would have come from a humble background, and running was their ‘springboard to increased social status’ (Gotaas 2009, p.14).

I have investigated running as an arts and humanities discourse and artistic research paradigm since 2009. I am described as ‘absolutely central’ and ‘instrumental’ (Whelan 2015) in leading and broadening ‘Running Studies’. My work displays ‘radical interdisciplinarity’ (Latham, 2016). A theatre researcher states that ‘it is the artist, curator, and researcher Kai Syng Tan who has done the most in seeking to develop an interdisciplinary discourse around running art and performance (Filmer 2020).

The body and mind in motion and commotion as a form of intervention and interrogation of and amid a world in motion and commotion. A non-linear slideshow performed at ANTI Festival of Contemporary Performance (Kuopio, Finland 2015) and Exparte at the Brick Lane Gallery (for the Singapore Tourism Board, 2015).