steve dixon : absent fiends : internet theatre, posthuman bodies and the interactive void


Abstract:
The first part of this paper provides a critical survey of theoretical responses to the questions of liveness, embodiment, performance and subjectivity thrown up by the increasingly wide-ranging modes of intersection between the Internet and theatrical performance. While signalling scepticism about the naïve, utopian and sometimes retrograde positions the 'over-theorisation' some such events have been subjected to, the paper nonetheless acknowledges that online performance does give rise to important questions about presence and community. The second part constitutes a case study of a performance initiated by the author, and brings the practical issues of online performance-making to bear upon the theoretical issues already raised.

Steve Dixon is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Media, Music and Performance at the University of Salford. He is director of the multimedia performance research company The Chameleons Group, and has produced two CD-ROMs documenting and critically analysing the group's work, both of which have won international awards. He is co-director of the Digital Performance Archive, which records and analyses developments in virtual-theatre and cyber-performance and is currently completing a book and accompanying DVD with co-director Barry Smith for MIT Press entitled Digital Performance: New Technologies in Theatre, Dance and Performance Art. He has published internationally on a range of subjects including performance studies, virtual theatre, community arts, hypermedia theory, and film hermeneutics.

Related links:
Digital Performance Archive: http://art.ntu.ac.uk/dpa

Online articles:
"Digits, Discourse and Documentation: Performance Research and Hypermedia", copyright TDR: The Drama Review, Vol 43, Number 1 (T161), Spring1999, pp 152 - 175. http://mitpress.mit.edu/journals/DRAM/43-1/pdf/dixon.pdf

“IT and the Audio-Visual Theatre Essay" in Creating Digital Performance Resources, Edited by Barry Smith, Oxbow Books, Oxford, 2002, pp 65 - 76. http://www.pads.ahds.ac.uk:81/padsGGPPerformance

CD-ROMs:
Two research CD-ROMs have been produced about the work of The Chameleons Group. Gratis copies are available by emailing the contact address below

Contact:
S.Dixon@salford.ac.uk

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