Contemporary

performance and digital

art (3)

MEDIA TECHNOLOGY AND

PERFORMANCE
Absent/Present body

Thursday, 5 March 15

What shall we do today?

1.

Looking at the phenomena of presence.

3. Looking at practitioners who are working

with absent/present body as concepts

Thursday, 5 March 15

Real and virtual in performance

Thursday, 5 March 15

PRESENCE AND TELEPRESENCE

Presence is a theoretical concept describing the
extent to which media represent the world (in both
physical and social environments).
Presence is further described by Matthew Lombard
and Theresa Ditton as an illusion that a mediated
experience is not mediated."[2] Today, it often
considers the effect that people experience when they
interact with a computer-mediated environment.
Minsky's research explained telepresence as the
manipulation of objects in the real world through
remote access technology.

Thursday, 5 March 15

MulAmedia as Gesamtkunstwerk
In the essay The Artwork of the Future, wri8en in 1849 Wagner declared
In the essay The Artwork of the Future, written in 1849 Wagner declared Artistic
ArAsAc Man can only fully content himself by uniAng every branch of Art into
Man can only fully content himself by uniting every branch of Art into the
the common Artwork.
common Artwork.
Wagner believed that music, poetry, dance, painting and architecture could be
Wagner believed that music, poetry, dance, painAng and architecture could be
brought together to create a Gesamtkunstwerk, or Total Artwork
brought together to create a Gesamtkunstwerk, or Total Artwork
Wagner viewed the Drama as the ideal medium in which this synthesis could
Wagner viewed the Drama as the ideal medium in which this synthesis could
take place
take place
Richard Wagner Outlines of the Artwork of the Future in
Richard Wagner Outlines of the Artwork of the Future in
Randall Packer and Ken Jordan eds. (2001) Multimedia: From Wagner To Virtual
Randall Packer and Ken Jordan eds. (2001) Mul0media: From Wagner To Virtual
Reality, New York:W.W.Norton and Company, p. 4.
Reality, New York: W.W.Norton and Company, p. 4.

Thursday, 5 March 15

INSTALLATION ART
Installation art describes an artistic
genre of three-dimensional works that are
often site-specific and designed to
transform the perception of a space.
Generally, the term is applied to interior
spaces, whereas exterior interventions are
often called Land art; however, the
boundaries between these terms overlap.
In Art and Objecthood, Michael Fried
derisively labels art that acknowledges the
viewer as theatrical . There is a strong
parallel between installation and theater:
both play to a viewer who is expected to
be at once immersed in the sensory/
narrative experience that surrounds him
and maintain a degree of self-identity as a
viewer.

Thursday, 5 March 15

INSTALLATION ART
[One] is simultaneously both a victim and a viewer, who on the
one hand surveys and evaluates the installation, and on the other,
follows those associations, recollections which arise in him[;] he is
overcome by the intense atmosphere of the total illusion
Kabakov, p. 256
Here installation art bestows an unprecedented importance on the observers
inclusion in that which he observes. The expectations and social habits that the
viewer takes with him into the space of the installation will remain with him as he
enters, to be either applied or negated once he has taken in the new environment.

Thursday, 5 March 15

 The medium is the messageis a phrase

coined byMarshall McLuhanmeaning that the
form of amediumembeds itself in
themessage, creating a symbiotic relationship
by which the medium influences how the
message is perceived.
The phrase was introduced in his most widely
known book,Understanding Media:The
Extensions of Man, published in 1964.McLuhan
proposes that amediumitself, not the
content it carries, should be the focus of study.
He said that a medium affects the society in
which it plays a role not only by the content
delivered over the medium, but also by the
characteristics of the medium itself

Thursday, 5 March 15

REMEDIATION
Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin offer a
theory of mediation for our digital age that
challenges McLuchan. They argue that new
visual media achieve their cultural significance
precisely by paying homage to, rivaling, and
refashioning such earlier media as perspective
painting, photography, film, and television. They
call this process of refashioning "remediation,"
and they note that earlier media have also
refashioned one another: photography
remediated painting, film remediated stage
production and photography, and television
remediated film, vaudeville, and radio.

Thursday, 5 March 15

Reversed Remedia+on: Evelien Lohbecks noteboek

Noteboek (2008)
Hypermediacy, the multiplying of technologies,
is the central operational method for both
remediation and reversed remediation.
According to Bolter and Grusin, in
remediation, hypermediacy is used to enable a
seamless transition between different (older
and newer) media in order to render all media
transparent, which follows a historicallydetermined desire for immediacy. In reversed
remediation, hypermediacy is used to display
the incongruities between media in order to
frustrate immersion and fosters critical
awareness.

Thursday, 5 March 15

NEW TERMS AND REFERENCES

Thursday, 5 March 15

NEW TERMS AND REFERENCES

Gesamtkunstwerk (Wagner)

Thursday, 5 March 15

NEW TERMS AND REFERENCES

Gesamtkunstwerk (Wagner)
The medium is the message
(McLuhan)

Thursday, 5 March 15

NEW TERMS AND REFERENCES

Gesamtkunstwerk (Wagner)
The medium is the message
(McLuhan)
Remediation (Bodler and Grusin)

Thursday, 5 March 15

NEW TERMS AND REFERENCES

Gesamtkunstwerk (Wagner)
The medium is the message
(McLuhan)
Remediation (Bodler and Grusin)
Hypermediation

Thursday, 5 March 15

COMPLICITE

The British theatre company Complicite was

founded in 1983 by Simon McBurney, Annabel
Arden, and Marcello Magni. Its original name was
Thtre de Complicit. "The Company's
inimitable style of visual and devised theatre [has]
an emphasis on strong, corporeal, poetic and
surrealist image supporting text" (Stephen
Knapper, 2010, Contemporary European Theatre
Directors). Its work has been influenced by Jacques
Lecoq. The company produced their first work in
1983. In 1985 they won the Perrier Comedy Award
at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

The company is based in London and use extreme

movement to represent their work. Their
productions often involve dazzling use of
technology, such as projection and cameras, as well
as lyrical and philosophical contemplation of serious
themes.

A Dogs heart
A Disappearing Number

Thursday, 5 March 15

Builders Association Alledeen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbQ8pDCQbEs
Thursday, 5 March 15

Gob Squad Revolution now

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1WSb4YeiaA
Thursday, 5 March 15

Temporary Distortion has earned a

reputation for pushing the boundaries of
theater by staging unsettling and meditative acts
in claustrophobic, boxlike structures, featuring
minimal physical movement and a uniquely
restrained style of performance.
The companys work began with performances
in life-size shadow boxes that evolved into
larger and more open-frame structures,
permitting greater flexibility and visual variety.
These structures allowed the form of the
shadow box to evolve into a multifaceted and
multifunctional assemblage, with any number of
theatrical apparatus attached, including: lights,
microphones, speakers, television monitors, and
video projection surfaces.
Newyorkland- http://vimeo.com/66536223

Thursday, 5 March 15

WORK IN GROUP

Topic that you want to explore

Field review
Where do you want to do your work?
What equipment you will need?
Duration/resources/timeframe

*5 minute meeting with tutor to elaborate!

Thursday, 5 March 15