Research Seminar - ‘Being with:’ Multimedia images as collaborative agents with human performers in posthuman performance

‘Being with:’ Multimedia images as collaborative agents with human performers in posthuman performance

Presented by: Dr Abbie Victoria Trott

Date: Friday 28 April 2023
Time: 12-1pm
Location: Online via Zoom and in-person at the SCA Writer's Studio (Level 6, Michie Building)

Abstract

The audience has always been asked to appreciate the subjectivity and agency of non-human bodies. Responding to rapid changes in how digital and mediated bodies are integrated into theatre and performance across the last decade, I use new materialism to compare who engenders digital and multimedia images with agency in two performance examples, one from 2011 an the other 2018. My argument in this paper is grounded in the assertion that because the live multimedia image operates in an interactive relationship with its human co-performers, extended experiences are available to audiences of multimedia performance in the face of Peggy Phelan’s call for an “ontologically unique performance event.” I compare multimedia performance from the early 2010s with a postdigital performance of the late 2010s to argue that the subjectification of mediated images has translated for audiences as they use a digital lens to view postdigital and posthuman theatre. The strategies used by version 1.0 in The Table of Knowledge (2011) to effectively integrate multimedia into the performance fabric entailed the application of collaborative theatre processes, where the digital, video and multimedia artists participated in the overall process as agents, not just through providing video content. Young people performing “Deleted” in a youth theatre festival called Take Over at Geelong Arts Centre (2018) also integrated the digital into their performance, however, as postdigital performances, the digital was ubiquitous and the non-human digital imagery was afforded agency and subjectivity by its spectators through their immersion in digital culture. 

Presenter

Interested in examining the reception of digital bodies, Dr Abbie Victoria Trott researches postdigital theatre with audiences. Teaching theatre and performance at a tertiary level since 2014, she is an experienced stage and production manager across community theatre, circus, and multimedia performance. Abbie lectures in Drama at the University of Queensland and is working at Deakin University as a Research Fellow on a project about audience diversity and organisational change in Australian arts and culture.