Performance and New Technologies, 2017

Full Name: Jem Kelly, Jo Scott, Christina Papagiannouli

Annual Conference Theme (if applicable): Analogue-Digital-Postdigital Performance Practices

What were the main points that emerged from your WG this year?
The first session, Archives – PaR – Documenting/promoting performance, looked at the topic of digital archives and performance documentation focusing on Practice as Research (PaR) methodologies. The presentations by Steven Paige, Zeta Kolokythopoulou, Stefano Brilli and Jem Kelly brought up notions of documentation as processing, as presentation and for re-creation in conversation with archive users, archive makers and archive thinkers. The working group discussed the issue of absence of documentation strategies and highlighted the importance of building a methodology for documenting and promoting theatre and performance in the post-digital era.    Referring to Henry Jenkins’ concept of tranmedia, the second session – Transmedia and the postdigital audience – addressed the change of audience in postdigital performance from passive spectator to a ‘prosumer’. In particular, Carmen Gonzalez Requeijo, Benjamin Monk and Christina Papagiannouli looked at screened theatre practices to discuss transmedialization. Discussions focused on the need of building new strategies and training new professionals for transmedia performances.   The third session, Performance Practices in a Postdigital Era, focused on the use of new technologies in a wide range of different PaR performance practices from Kirsi Manninen’s costume sketching to Dan Barnard’s political performance and from Thanos Polymeneas Liontiris‘ cyber operas and vocaloids to Joanne Scott’s audio-visual exhibitions. The working group mainly discussed the notion of non-human performance, where the use of technology results in the absence of human presence.   The fourth session, Gestures – movements – technologies, included presentations by Andrew Westerside, Rosamaria Kostic Cisneros and Piotr Woycicki addressing theatricality in games, whole body interaction learning in dance and ‘post-cinematic’ theatre. There were useful discussions around the sensibility, feel or affect of these technologically enabled experiences and how the specific interfaces explored are ‘recalibrating the feel of sensory experience. 

What was discussed at your business meeting?

The business meeting focused on discussions around communication practices. The WG agreed to make a better use of the Performance and New Technologies Facebook group for sharing members’ news, publications and events. Moreover, the WG discussed the possibility of creating a blog to continue and extend discussions on emerging themes from the annual conference and the interim events. We hope to launch the blog during the next interim event and link it with the WG’s TaPRA official page. The WG also agreed to archive videos from the WG sessions on the WG’s TaPRA page (if applicable) or blog and thanked Jem Kelly for kindly documenting the WG sessions. 

There was extensive discussion about the interim event and the WG’s theme for the 2018 TaPRA conference. The WG agreed to focus on PaR practices in the interim event and use the interim event’s budget to support attendance of artists whose research interests focus on interactive performance practices to test out ideas around interaction with audiences, technologies and social media. The interim event will be hosted by Jem Kelly at Buckinghamshire New University. The agreed theme for the 2018 TaPRA conference is the use of social media in theatre and performance, with suggested title ‘The digital Performer and Social Media’. There was discussion about collaborating with other groups for open sessions. The WG is interested in co-hosting a session with the Performer Training WG on the use of social media and new technologies for training purposes and with the Popular Performance WG, whose interests in new technologies and popular performance seem to link with major themes of our WG, including fandom studies, NTLive and the use of social media.    

There was some discussion about the ECR bursary criteria. In light of the recent epidemic of academic job cuts, many mid and senior career colleagues have lost their jobs and are currently non-affiliated. We believe that the bursary should not exclude those colleagues, who can benefit from this or a similar bursary.  We suggest that the bursary should be available to non University-affiliated theatre and performance researchers (from any career level) with priority given to ECRs.

Jem Kelly informed the group that he will step down from the role of co-convener at the 2018 TaPRA conference and WG members were prompted to express interest in the role.

Types of contributions:
Papers and provocations. Although we received two performance proposals, contributors had to withdraw their applications due to lack of conference registration financial support.

Number of formal contributors (those listed in book of abstracts) 19

Approx. overall number of delegates who attended your WG Sessions 20-25
Composition of WG (PG, ECR, etc.)
The Performance and New Technologies WG members are from all career levels. In 2017, 8 of the contributors were PGRs, 8 were ECRs and 3 senior researchers.

Did you have any non-UK participants? Yes

If your WG hosted an Open Panel, do you have any feedback?

This session comprised papers from Alexandros Papadopolos, Mark Smith and Claire Reid and was chaired by Jem Kelly. Each paper in its own way considers the impact of digital communication media on audience reception, participation and affect. Mark’s paper drew fruitful connections between archaeology and the post-digital through consideration of the interconnected spectator, seeking to find ‘conceptual through-lines  from the analogue to the digital’ in what Pearson and Thomas refer to as ‘second-order performance’. He applied these concepts by examining digital traces of Forced Entertainment’s livestreamed work. Claire’s paper, playfully entitled ‘tweet…the s**t out of this one…’, a quote of Benedict Cumberbatch’s plea to fans in the audience to desist using their mobile phones to record his performance, interrogates issues arising from the NT’s 2015 live streaming of Hamlet and its subsequent NT Encore showings. She concludes that ‘the use of social media lengthens the life of performances through audience interaction with technology’. Alexandros also examined ways in which social media can affect real-life exchanges, this time between ‘Athens-based gay neo-nazis’ and his own ‘impersonations of a homo-nazi’. His talk re-stages some of the techniques, approaches and content used in his performance The Homo-Nazi Effect.  The group discussion centred on issues around live streaming, performance documentation and spectator intervention exploring the extent to which the spectator may be considered a co-author of the event.  

Any additional points or feedback not covered above?

The Performance and New Technologies WG attracts a number of international participants. This year we had participants from Italy, Spain and Finland.