Beyond Performance Studies: Mediated Performance and the Posthuman
Main Article Content
Abstract
My project is not to create a model for intermedial performance analysis, but rather to set the discourse about it in a larger context. Given the rich variety of mediated performances, the notion that there is a definable and delineated act of «performance» demands methodological scrutiny because the discipline of Performance Studies has yet to find a coherent approach to a type of performance that is not grounded in the presence of the body. I suggest that the view that tiesperformance to individual human agency, to the performer and the body of the performer is a liability in the study of mediated performance; but also, perhaps paradoxically, that the analysis of mediated performance, once the anthropic bias is discounted, allows us to revalorize certain seemingly obsolete «humanist» categories by embracing the notion of posthumanism. Discussing a number of instances of mediated performance, including video, digital avatars, and CGI, the article posits that performance analysis should embrace posthumanism and models of consciousness as a way of coming to terms with the «theory machine» of digital/virtual performance modes.
Downloads
Article Details
An open-access CREATIVE COMMONS copyright license is used. Those authors whose works are published by this journal, accept the following terms:
- Authors will retain their copyright and guarantee the Journal the right to first publish their work, which will simultaneously be subject to the Creative Commons Recognition License CC BY SA that allows third parties to share the work, provided that its author and first publication is indicated.
- Authors may adopt other non-exclusive license agreements for the distribution of the published version of the work (e.g., deposit it in an institutional telematics file or publish it in a monographic volume) provided that the initial publication in this journal is indicated.
- Authors are allowed and recommended to disseminate their work over the Internet (e.g. in institutional telematics files or on their website) before and during the submission process, which can produce interesting exchanges and increase quotes of the published work.