Digital Scenography: 30 Years of Experimentation and Innovation in Performance and Interactive Media (Performance and Design)

Shortlisted for the PQ Best Publication Award in Performance Design & Scenography 2023 This book uses digital media theory to explore contemporary understandings of expanded scenography as spatial practice. It surveys and analyses a selection of ground-breaking, experimental digital media performances that comprise a genealogy spanning the last 30 years, in order to show how the arrival of digital technologies have profoundly transformed performance practice. Performances are selected based on their ability to elicit the unique specificities of digital media in new and original ways, thereby exposing both the richness and shortcomings of digital culture. O'Dwyer argues that contemporary scenography is largely propelled by and dependent on digital technologies and represents a rich, fertile domain, where unbridled creativity can explore new techniques and challenge the limits of knowledge. The 30-year genealogy includes works by Troika Ranch, Stelarc, Klaus Obermaier, Chunky Moves, Onion Lab and Blast Theory. In addition to applying a broad scope of performance analysis and aesthetic theory, the work includes artists' interviews and opinions. The volume opens important aesthetic, philosophical and socio-political themes in order to highlight the impact of digital technologies on scenographic practice and the blossoming of experimental interdisciplinarity. Ultimately, the book is an exploration of how evolutionary leaps in technology contribute to how humans think, act, make work, engage one another, and therefore construct meaning and identity. Cover Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction Historical Background Yet Another Recuperation of the Theory of the Avant-Garde Contextualization of Digital Scenography Epochal Rupture of Digital Technology and Global Interconnectivity Methodology Through-Lines 1 Avant-Garde and Invention in Early Digital Scenography: Troika Ranch Introduction Background The Need (1989) Tactile Diaries (1990) Mise-en-scène Technical Description Project Background and Avant-Garde Tendencies Teleacting and Democratization of Video Broadcasting Rupture and the Pharmacology of Digital Telecommunications Experimentalism, Invention and Procedure Systems Art Technological Transformations of Methods Towards In Plane Individuation and Influences on Troika Ranch In Plane A Final Thought on Troika Ranch 2 Scenography of the Cyborg: Stelarc’s Extra Ear Introduction Themes and Concepts Extra Ear: Description Leroi-Gourhan, Evolution and the Technical Tendency Technicity Towards Technical Individuation A General Organology Technical Evolution Preindividual Milieu and Epiphylogenesis Stelarc’s Extra Ear, Post-evolution and Organ Functions Subversion and Rupture Sociocultural Impact 3 Innovations in Motion-Tracking and Projection-Mapping: Klaus Obermaier D.A.V.E. Technical Determinacy in D.A.V.E. Vivisector Description The Ambivalences of Digital Scenography Apparition Responsive Scenography Projection-Mapping Socio-political Metaphors of Apparition Symbiosis or Organology? 4 Responsive Environments and Choreographing Indeterminacy: Chunky Move Introduction Description Grammatization Specificities of Digital Scenography Sublime Aesthetics of Mortal Engine Performing Digital Individuations: Organology Delegation of Responsibilities: Towards AI The Pharmacology of the Second ‘Scenographic Turn’ Expanding the Theoretical Lens 5 Architectural Projection-Mapping: OnionLab Beaming on a Grand Scale Introduction A-Cero 15th Anniversary: Description Theodor Adorno: Aesthetic Theory and the Culture Industry From the Culture Industry to the Programme Industry Symbolic Misery Desire Desire and the Programme Industry Blade Runner 2049: ‘Everything You Want to Hear/See’ and the Horror of Joi The Pharmacology of Software as Art Material Computer Vision: A Digital Resource The Pharmacology of Software as an Art Material Summing Up Projection-Mapping and the Programming Industries 6 Ubiquitous Computing, Behavioural Profiling, Big Data and Machine Learning: Blast Theory Introduction Karen Description Mise-en-scène Dramaturgy Durational Time, Intermittence and Subversion of the Author–Audience Relation Algorithmic Governmentality and 24/7 Capitalism A New Critical Vocabulary for the New Economy The Goal of Art in the Hyperindustrial Economy Bifurcation Points in the Hyperindustrial Economy Eliciting the New Specificities Conclusion: Towards a Nascent Grammar of Digital Scenography Political Agency Singularity (In)determinism Innovative Repurposing Digital Specificity Noetic Reactivation Increasing Technological Performativity A Final Word Notes Bibliography Index "This book uses digital media theory to explore contemporary understandings of expanded scenography as spatial practice. It surveys and analyses a selection of ground-breaking, experimental digital media performances that comprise a genealogy spanning the last 30 years, in order to show how the arrival of digital technologies have profoundly transformed performance practice. Performances are selected based on their ability to elicit the unique specificities of digital media in new and original ways, thereby exposing both the richness and shortcomings of digital culture. O'Dwyer argues that contemporary scenography is largely propelled by and dependent on digital technologies and represents a rich, fertile domain, where unbridled creativity can explore new techniques and challenge the limits of knowledge. The 30-year genealogy includes works by Troika Ranch, Stelarc, Klaus Obermaier, Chunky Moves, Onion Lab and Blast Theory. In addition to applying a broad scope of performance analysis and aesthetic theory, the work includes artists' interviews and opinions. The volume opens important aesthetic, philosophical and socio-political themes in order to highlight the impact of digital technologies on scenographic practice and the blossoming of experimental interdisciplinarity. Ultimately, the book is an exploration of how evolutionary leaps in technology contribute to how humans think, act, make work, engage one another, and therefore construct meaning and identity."-- Provided by publisher