In mid-October I received an exciting parcel: the four volumes of Kultura Nova‘s series on mobility. My contribution, “Digital Mobility / Mobile Thinking” appears in the first volume, which is titled “Mobility in Culture: Conceptual Frameworks and Approaches“.

This was a really interesting article for me to write, as it gave me the opportunity to reflect not only on my 20+ years of personal and creative digital mobility, but also on two recent projects: Mobilise/Demobilise (current), and last year’s online Magdalena festival, Bodies:On:Live. I realised that many of the themes in these projects are also themes in my life and work that have been recurring in different ways over the years. For example, I was able to refer back to an article I wrote in 2007 for the online journal .dpi, on the theme of “suspended mobility” and draw connections from there to my current work and the writings of Lesley Head in relation to mobility and the anthropocene.

In my article I propose that mobile thinking is essential to navigating the uncertain times that we are living in. Those in the arts, especially theatre, and especially those who work independently, are already adept at improvising and inventing when our best-laid plans are disrupted by events outside our control; and this places us well to be thought-leaders as society and the environment undergo the massive changes that cannot be avoided. The projects that I discuss in the article offer models of mobile thinking and digital mobility that can help to sustain us.

The series of four volumes is the outcome of Kultura Nova’s research into mobility in culture, presenting a variety of perspectives from European cultural workers, an evaluation of the i-Portunus Houses mobility grants scheme, and a look into the future that introduces the concept of “slow mobility” as an answer to the recognised needs for change in cultural mobility. Happily, you don’t have to wait to receive the books via post – everything is freely available as downloadable pdfs: https://kulturanova.hr/eng/resources/kultura-nova-edition/i-portunus-houses-publication