Digital performance
Encyclopedia
Digital Performance is a very wide category filled with a range of productions, it is a generic performance
but with an extra element of incorporating and integrating computer
technologies and techniques into the production. You can incorporate multimedia
into any type of performance whether it is live on a theatre
stage or in the street. Anything as small as video recordings or a visual image classes the production as multimedia and therefore a digital performance. When the key role in a performance is the computer technologies rather than it being an additional role is when it is classed as a digital performance. This can be as little as projections on a screen in front of a live audience to creating and devising a performance in an online environment to using animation
and sensing software’s.
. Performances are normally reliant on the audience and obviously to receive a good reception from the audience so with the ongoing integration of multimedia within productions surprises the audience and keeps them on edge. It also deals with the emotional and sensorial impact of the audiences. The social impact
it has after the performance is out in the world and what meanings have come of the performance from different cliques of people.
The Digital Performance Archive stores a lot of physical and catalogued archives from the 20th century, as they carried out a research project, which involved the increase and creative use of computer technology, and techniques within live theatre and dance
productions to even cyberspace
interactive dramas and webcast
s. Looking at a broad range of diverse productions would have enhanced their research project as they saw how each type of performance was affected and even how new types of performance came about due to the involvement of computer technologies and techniques and all other multimedia sources. Happenings also from the 20th century included new and emerging forms of drama and genres in performance; this occurred due to the active and escalating role of computer technology within all types of performances and productions. It became a significant and very important role within the society of live theatre. Not only did it start to play a key role within theatre it also became a key role within our whole society, with businesses and education
involving and using computers more and more as a convenience. As our society became more reliant on computers in everyday life it is exciting to then see how artists and performers use this everyday convenience to create new productions.
CD-ROM
s, video games and a countless amount of installations exaggerated and performed by users upped the level of interactive potential of computers. With computers becoming more and more accessible and popular as well as advanced with time so are the performances that contain them.
From the first digital performance to present day trends have been set and this has been helped by the upgrades that surround computers. Artist
s have followed each other’s works and therefore set trends of their own whilst the technology has set its own trends through upgrades and new software’s coming out which appeal to artists in the field. Another trend that is apparent is theoretical trends to do with all digital productions. Online environments are a strong base for theoretical trends as the frameworks are similar and sometimes the same.
The largest base for theatre in the world is the World Wide Web
; the Internet
is seen as a satisfying place for relaxation and offers everyone who uses the Internet their ‘fifteen megabytes of fame.' Every single person who uses online networking sites, blog
s, chat room
s, MOO
s and IRC is creating their own performance with the use of e-friendships. Therefore it is not just the artists who deliberately devise theatrical events via the use of computer techniques and technologies.
The whole catalogue of Digital Performance is so diverse and a wide spread that it creates new and different visual and stylistic aspects. Computers have so many platforms available to create performances on that each production allows the artist/s or companies to gain extraordinary and unique experiences, new genres and experience new existences and beings via virtual realities
.
The relationship formed between technology
and art
is a wonderful one. Two completely different areas joined together to create something new. They blend so well together and complement one another perfectly to become a strand under digital performance. ‘Performance is undertaking a shift in the conception of technology’. As the educational curriculum
also upgrades with the latest technologies, school/college/university students are becoming more aware of the techniques they can include in performances and they want to involve the digital side as it is seen as more modern nowadays and appeals to a wide audience.
Performers and devisors of digital performance productions have to approach the aspects of technology in diverse ways to be able to reach different meanings, content, drama, the impact of visuals and the audience-performer relationship. The computer is seen as the middle man, who fixes lasting problems rather than creating original and new performance processes and hype, in digital performance.
, dream
s, and fantasy
worlds.
Over the past decade or so we have witnessed a very vast and incredible development within every aspect of the technological world. And as a result of this, there has been a large increase in the experimentation with computer technologies being integrated within the performing arts
; and with the new technological creations and the developments of existing digital technologies they are also beginning to create a greater, more significant impact on the way in which different art forms are being practiced. Digital media
now has a new and much more dramatic role to play in live theatre, dance and performance; and while digital media performances are now beginning to proliferate there are now many new forms of interactive performance genres that have emerged. These new genres are most commonly in the style of audience participatory installation pieces that can take place either on the internet or can be played on a CD – ROM. “Computers are arenas for social experience and dramatic interaction, a type of media more like public theatre, and their output is used for qualitative interaction, dialogue and conversation.” The computer is vastly becoming a significant tool and agent of performative action and creation. Computer technologies can be contextualised as being of a social, cultural and artistic change. Computers do now permit for the artistic modes of expression and for the new generic forms of networking and interactive performance. Theatre itself has always been right at the cutting edge of technology and it has been quick on the mark to be able to recognise, and to take full advantage of the dramatic and aesthetic potentials that these new and existing technologies have to offer. Theatre, dance and performance art
have always been known to be a form of multimedia; and right at the very core of the theatre through all the manifestations right to the contemporary experimentation, as well as incorporating all of the visual elements in to a production; at the foreground to any piece there is the human voice and the spoken text.
Locating the roots of digital performance practices can be traced back for many decades or even centuries. There are three main periods that can be highlighted in the history of multi - media performance; Futurism
during the 1910’s, mixed media performance during the 1960’s and experimentation with a performance and the computer during the 1990’s. Both during the eras of Futurism and the experimentation with computer incorporated within performance, they are both greatly inspired by the development of new and existing technology. Researching back, digital performance practices have experimented with numerous of the different avant – garde movements which can date right back from the early twentieth century, some of these movements can include the likes of Bauhaus
, Dada
, Surrealism
and many more. It could be said that digital performance can be linked to the aesthetics, philosophies and practices of the futurist movement. One of the main links that has been found which can connect futurism to digital performance was with the use of the ‘machine’ which was used in the set of Robert Lepage
’s Zulu Time (1999). Although, it can be said that the avant – garde movement Futurism does have a more philosophical basis for contemporary digital performance, more so than any of the other avant – garde movements such as the likes of Bauhaus, Dada and Surrealism which are mainly used to provide inspiration for a large part of the content and styles for the artistic expression. Looking back at the early twentieth century avant – garde, there were many works that would use pre – digital technologies.
One of the earliest examples of when theatre and film were being integrated together in a performance, with the use of digital technology was to try and challenge the distinction between what is ‘liveness’ as in the live performer on the stage and the media imagery, it is about the relationship between the virtual and the actual performance being the dialogical interactivity
. With the increased usage of digital media in a performance, not all performances are necessarily live, without the body’s physical presence it could be argued whether this is this still live theatre or just a set of media images and footage. Theatre pieces which have integrated digital media and computer generated projections built into performances have a long historical lineage that stretches back to over a hundred years ago to an experiment that was conducted by Loie Fuller
. Fuller was the first modern dance choreographer to try out and to use new technology within her performance work. In 1911, Fuller, a dancer, conducted an experiment where she used film footage and projected it onto diaphanous robes. In the performance, as Fuller danced the robes in which she was wearing became a sort of ‘screen’ where multi – coloured lights were projected upon it. This was one of the first pieces of theatre where film footage was integrated in to becoming a part of a live theatre performance.
From the early 1960’s, computer generated imagery had then began to emerge as a distinctive art form, and in John Whitney’s
film Catalog (1961) viewers witnessed one of films’ first ever uses of computer transformations. Although digital arts had been developing since the 1960’s, in the 1990’s computer technologies had become much more accessible to artists which then led to a large increase in the digital performance activity. It was during this time that computer hardware
was built to become much more “user – friendly” and we then witnessed the invention of the digital camera
and the home PC’s (Personal Computer
) and the establishment of the World Wide Web. It was during this period of time which would then go on to be known as being the ‘Digital Revolution
’. During the period of the ‘Digital Revolution’ there was a great influence on the aesthetics, creation and culture of the performance arts; this had a significant effect on the process for film and television production to the creative writing and the visual and performance arts.
From 1970 there was a period of time of when theatrical experimentation elevated the visual over the verbal; there was a proliferation in the use of media projections in theatre, dance and performance art, using both screens and video monitors. With the ease of using these video
technologies more and more artists began to play around with the possibilities of integrating visual media within their live performance work. The use of media technology including the likes of film, video and sound equipment became some of the main characteristics for the experimental theatre
, and some of the most noted performance artists of this time were creating work by incorporating video and film footage into their theatre productions. By the 1990’s multimedia and computer technologies had widely become a part of everyday life. In live multimedia theatre: the projection screens or video monitor frame additional space, in two dimensions. Media screens are able to provide a uniquely flexible space, unlike the fixed point of view in which a traditional theatre provides to the members of the audience. Moving towards the end of the twentieth century digital computer technologies have became increasingly more ubiquitous.
As digital media has now become more and more popular over the years, the perception of digital images and videos now are now lacking in legitimacy as these technologies have gradually intensified over the past few years. Digital performance is an expansion of a constantly progressing history of which embracing the adaptation of these new and already existing technologies, in which to amplify a performance and the visual art aesthetic effect, and to create the sense of a spectacle as well as capturing the emotional and the sensorial impact.
s and MOOs as well as the use of webcam
s and webcasts. They all created new forms to come under the live and interactive performance area. With the on-going increase of internet users more and more people are made accessible to these software’s therefore more and more artists are experimenting and devising performances using computer technologies which them branches out and raises the number of digital performances and productions.
Another case of what is under the title of digital performance is dance productions, using software and computer techniques such as advanced animation and motion capturing
. You can project images of your virtual dancers made on to the stage. As you are using computer techniques and software to project on to a stage, which has a live audience the performance/production, then becomes digital due to the elements involved. Software that is highly involved with digital performance is custom-made motion sensing; this software allows you to control images, avatars, sounds and lighting live on stage. This is important for today’s artists and audiences, as audiences are looking for something new and memorable. Artists are equally looking to create something new that will grab audiences, this software allows this to happen as you can experiment and change as much as you like live.
Communication through the Internet has been classed as a type of digital performance as it has been theorized as a type of virtual performance of the self. As this is so, people have already stated digital performance as being everywhere, which has led to digital performance being modernized itself. It has been noted as incorporating the elements of electronics
in everyday life through the communicational and production elements.
Some strands of performing have always been seen as multimedia forms such as theatre, dance and performance art. Dance involves an intimate relationship with music
for a start. All three of the above are involved with visual aspects such as sets, props, lighting and costume which are all a part of the production to enhance the body/bodies in a space. Using such aspects makes the performance become multimedia and that is becoming more advanced with the new techniques that computers are upgrading to therefore making digital performance a strong and popular area to study.
Performance
A performance, in performing arts, generally comprises an event in which a performer or group of performers behave in a particular way for another group of people, the audience. Choral music and ballet are examples. Usually the performers participate in rehearsals beforehand. Afterwards audience...
but with an extra element of incorporating and integrating computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
technologies and techniques into the production. You can incorporate multimedia
Multimedia
Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...
into any type of performance whether it is live on a theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
stage or in the street. Anything as small as video recordings or a visual image classes the production as multimedia and therefore a digital performance. When the key role in a performance is the computer technologies rather than it being an additional role is when it is classed as a digital performance. This can be as little as projections on a screen in front of a live audience to creating and devising a performance in an online environment to using animation
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
and sensing software’s.
Introduction
If we were to look at the history of performance itself we would be able to find traces of digital performance from centuries ago, where it may be an old type of performance it is made new everyday by the increase in software’s and techniques and even by the uniqueness of performers works, meanings and experiments. It is a continuing job to try and see how the acceptance of technology can increase the effects and spectacles of performances and visual artsVisual arts
The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...
. Performances are normally reliant on the audience and obviously to receive a good reception from the audience so with the ongoing integration of multimedia within productions surprises the audience and keeps them on edge. It also deals with the emotional and sensorial impact of the audiences. The social impact
Social impact
In business and government policy, social impact refers to how the organization's actions affect the surrounding community.See also the psychological "Social impact theory". is also the name of a service provider to NGOs and international agencies....
it has after the performance is out in the world and what meanings have come of the performance from different cliques of people.
The Digital Performance Archive stores a lot of physical and catalogued archives from the 20th century, as they carried out a research project, which involved the increase and creative use of computer technology, and techniques within live theatre and dance
Dance
Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
productions to even cyberspace
Cyberspace
Cyberspace is the electronic medium of computer networks, in which online communication takes place.The term "cyberspace" was first used by the cyberpunk science fiction author William Gibson, though the concept was described somewhat earlier, for example in the Vernor Vinge short story "True...
interactive dramas and webcast
Webcast
A webcast is a media presentation distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand...
s. Looking at a broad range of diverse productions would have enhanced their research project as they saw how each type of performance was affected and even how new types of performance came about due to the involvement of computer technologies and techniques and all other multimedia sources. Happenings also from the 20th century included new and emerging forms of drama and genres in performance; this occurred due to the active and escalating role of computer technology within all types of performances and productions. It became a significant and very important role within the society of live theatre. Not only did it start to play a key role within theatre it also became a key role within our whole society, with businesses and education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
involving and using computers more and more as a convenience. As our society became more reliant on computers in everyday life it is exciting to then see how artists and performers use this everyday convenience to create new productions.
CD-ROM
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
s, video games and a countless amount of installations exaggerated and performed by users upped the level of interactive potential of computers. With computers becoming more and more accessible and popular as well as advanced with time so are the performances that contain them.
From the first digital performance to present day trends have been set and this has been helped by the upgrades that surround computers. Artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
s have followed each other’s works and therefore set trends of their own whilst the technology has set its own trends through upgrades and new software’s coming out which appeal to artists in the field. Another trend that is apparent is theoretical trends to do with all digital productions. Online environments are a strong base for theoretical trends as the frameworks are similar and sometimes the same.
The largest base for theatre in the world is the World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
; the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
is seen as a satisfying place for relaxation and offers everyone who uses the Internet their ‘fifteen megabytes of fame.' Every single person who uses online networking sites, blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
s, chat room
Chat room
The term chat room, or chatroom, is primarily used by mass media to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing...
s, MOO
MOO
A MOO is a text-based online virtual reality system to which multiple users are connected at the same time.The term MOO is used in two distinct, but related, senses...
s and IRC is creating their own performance with the use of e-friendships. Therefore it is not just the artists who deliberately devise theatrical events via the use of computer techniques and technologies.
The whole catalogue of Digital Performance is so diverse and a wide spread that it creates new and different visual and stylistic aspects. Computers have so many platforms available to create performances on that each production allows the artist/s or companies to gain extraordinary and unique experiences, new genres and experience new existences and beings via virtual realities
Virtual reality
Virtual reality , also known as virtuality, is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds...
.
The relationship formed between technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
and art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
is a wonderful one. Two completely different areas joined together to create something new. They blend so well together and complement one another perfectly to become a strand under digital performance. ‘Performance is undertaking a shift in the conception of technology’. As the educational curriculum
Curriculum
See also Syllabus.In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...
also upgrades with the latest technologies, school/college/university students are becoming more aware of the techniques they can include in performances and they want to involve the digital side as it is seen as more modern nowadays and appeals to a wide audience.
Performers and devisors of digital performance productions have to approach the aspects of technology in diverse ways to be able to reach different meanings, content, drama, the impact of visuals and the audience-performer relationship. The computer is seen as the middle man, who fixes lasting problems rather than creating original and new performance processes and hype, in digital performance.
History
The term Digital Performance can usually be defined to consist of all types of performance in which computer technologies have taken on the main role rather than an auxiliary one in the content, techniques, aesthetics or the delivery forms. Digital performance will usually explore the representations of the subliminalSubliminal
Subliminal may refer to:* Subliminal stimuli* Subliminal , Israeli rapper and producer* Subliminal , an electronic music label...
, dream
Dream
Dreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, philosophical intrigue and religious...
s, and fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
worlds.
Over the past decade or so we have witnessed a very vast and incredible development within every aspect of the technological world. And as a result of this, there has been a large increase in the experimentation with computer technologies being integrated within the performing arts
Performing arts
The performing arts are those forms art which differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face, and presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can be molded or transformed to create some physical art object...
; and with the new technological creations and the developments of existing digital technologies they are also beginning to create a greater, more significant impact on the way in which different art forms are being practiced. Digital media
Digital media
Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital form. It can refer to the technical aspect of storage and transmission Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital (as opposed to analog) form. It can refer to the technical aspect of...
now has a new and much more dramatic role to play in live theatre, dance and performance; and while digital media performances are now beginning to proliferate there are now many new forms of interactive performance genres that have emerged. These new genres are most commonly in the style of audience participatory installation pieces that can take place either on the internet or can be played on a CD – ROM. “Computers are arenas for social experience and dramatic interaction, a type of media more like public theatre, and their output is used for qualitative interaction, dialogue and conversation.” The computer is vastly becoming a significant tool and agent of performative action and creation. Computer technologies can be contextualised as being of a social, cultural and artistic change. Computers do now permit for the artistic modes of expression and for the new generic forms of networking and interactive performance. Theatre itself has always been right at the cutting edge of technology and it has been quick on the mark to be able to recognise, and to take full advantage of the dramatic and aesthetic potentials that these new and existing technologies have to offer. Theatre, dance and performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
have always been known to be a form of multimedia; and right at the very core of the theatre through all the manifestations right to the contemporary experimentation, as well as incorporating all of the visual elements in to a production; at the foreground to any piece there is the human voice and the spoken text.
Locating the roots of digital performance practices can be traced back for many decades or even centuries. There are three main periods that can be highlighted in the history of multi - media performance; Futurism
Futurism
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century.Futurism or futurist may refer to:* Afrofuturism, an African-American and African diaspora subculture* Cubo-Futurism* Ego-Futurism...
during the 1910’s, mixed media performance during the 1960’s and experimentation with a performance and the computer during the 1990’s. Both during the eras of Futurism and the experimentation with computer incorporated within performance, they are both greatly inspired by the development of new and existing technology. Researching back, digital performance practices have experimented with numerous of the different avant – garde movements which can date right back from the early twentieth century, some of these movements can include the likes of Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
, Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
, Surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
and many more. It could be said that digital performance can be linked to the aesthetics, philosophies and practices of the futurist movement. One of the main links that has been found which can connect futurism to digital performance was with the use of the ‘machine’ which was used in the set of Robert Lepage
Robert Lepage
Robert Lepage, is a playwright, actor, film director, and stage director from Québec City, Québec, and is one of Canada's most honoured theatre artists.- Life and work :...
’s Zulu Time (1999). Although, it can be said that the avant – garde movement Futurism does have a more philosophical basis for contemporary digital performance, more so than any of the other avant – garde movements such as the likes of Bauhaus, Dada and Surrealism which are mainly used to provide inspiration for a large part of the content and styles for the artistic expression. Looking back at the early twentieth century avant – garde, there were many works that would use pre – digital technologies.
One of the earliest examples of when theatre and film were being integrated together in a performance, with the use of digital technology was to try and challenge the distinction between what is ‘liveness’ as in the live performer on the stage and the media imagery, it is about the relationship between the virtual and the actual performance being the dialogical interactivity
Interactivity
In the fields of information science, communication, and industrial design, there is debate over the meaning of interactivity. In the "contingency view" of interactivity, there are three levels:...
. With the increased usage of digital media in a performance, not all performances are necessarily live, without the body’s physical presence it could be argued whether this is this still live theatre or just a set of media images and footage. Theatre pieces which have integrated digital media and computer generated projections built into performances have a long historical lineage that stretches back to over a hundred years ago to an experiment that was conducted by Loie Fuller
Loie Fuller
Loie Fuller Loie Fuller Loie Fuller (also Loïe Fuller; (January 15, 1862 – January 1, 1928) was a pioneer of both modern dance and theatrical lighting techniques.-Career:...
. Fuller was the first modern dance choreographer to try out and to use new technology within her performance work. In 1911, Fuller, a dancer, conducted an experiment where she used film footage and projected it onto diaphanous robes. In the performance, as Fuller danced the robes in which she was wearing became a sort of ‘screen’ where multi – coloured lights were projected upon it. This was one of the first pieces of theatre where film footage was integrated in to becoming a part of a live theatre performance.
From the early 1960’s, computer generated imagery had then began to emerge as a distinctive art form, and in John Whitney’s
John Whitney (animator)
John Whitney, Sr. was an American animator, composer and inventor, widely considered to be one of the fathers of computer animation.-Life:...
film Catalog (1961) viewers witnessed one of films’ first ever uses of computer transformations. Although digital arts had been developing since the 1960’s, in the 1990’s computer technologies had become much more accessible to artists which then led to a large increase in the digital performance activity. It was during this time that computer hardware
Hardware
Hardware is a general term for equipment such as keys, locks, hinges, latches, handles, wire, chains, plumbing supplies, tools, utensils, cutlery and machine parts. Household hardware is typically sold in hardware stores....
was built to become much more “user – friendly” and we then witnessed the invention of the digital camera
Digital camera
A digital camera is a camera that takes video or still photographs, or both, digitally by recording images via an electronic image sensor. It is the main device used in the field of digital photography...
and the home PC’s (Personal Computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
) and the establishment of the World Wide Web. It was during this period of time which would then go on to be known as being the ‘Digital Revolution
Digital Revolution
The Digital Revolution is the change from analog mechanical and electronic technology to digital technology that has taken place since c. 1980 and continues to the present day. Implicitly, the term also refers to the sweeping changes brought about by digital computing and communication technology...
’. During the period of the ‘Digital Revolution’ there was a great influence on the aesthetics, creation and culture of the performance arts; this had a significant effect on the process for film and television production to the creative writing and the visual and performance arts.
From 1970 there was a period of time of when theatrical experimentation elevated the visual over the verbal; there was a proliferation in the use of media projections in theatre, dance and performance art, using both screens and video monitors. With the ease of using these video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
technologies more and more artists began to play around with the possibilities of integrating visual media within their live performance work. The use of media technology including the likes of film, video and sound equipment became some of the main characteristics for the experimental theatre
Experimental theatre
Experimental theatre is a general term for various movements in Western theatre that began in the late 19th century as a retraction against the dominant vent governing the writing and production of dramatical menstrophy, and age in particular. The term has shifted over time as the mainstream...
, and some of the most noted performance artists of this time were creating work by incorporating video and film footage into their theatre productions. By the 1990’s multimedia and computer technologies had widely become a part of everyday life. In live multimedia theatre: the projection screens or video monitor frame additional space, in two dimensions. Media screens are able to provide a uniquely flexible space, unlike the fixed point of view in which a traditional theatre provides to the members of the audience. Moving towards the end of the twentieth century digital computer technologies have became increasingly more ubiquitous.
As digital media has now become more and more popular over the years, the perception of digital images and videos now are now lacking in legitimacy as these technologies have gradually intensified over the past few years. Digital performance is an expansion of a constantly progressing history of which embracing the adaptation of these new and already existing technologies, in which to amplify a performance and the visual art aesthetic effect, and to create the sense of a spectacle as well as capturing the emotional and the sensorial impact.
Production examples
Video conferencing is also a part of digital performance, some theatre companies (such as ‘The Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre’ and ‘Kunstwerk-Blend’) introduced this into their productions to bring different performers from different locations together live on stage to create a lively new brand of digital performance. The Internet is used as a base for these productions with text-based online environments such as MUDMUD
A MUD , pronounced , is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, with the term usually referring to text-based instances of these. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, player versus player, interactive fiction, and online chat...
s and MOOs as well as the use of webcam
Webcam
A webcam is a video camera that feeds its images in real time to a computer or computer network, often via USB, ethernet, or Wi-Fi.Their most popular use is the establishment of video links, permitting computers to act as videophones or videoconference stations. This common use as a video camera...
s and webcasts. They all created new forms to come under the live and interactive performance area. With the on-going increase of internet users more and more people are made accessible to these software’s therefore more and more artists are experimenting and devising performances using computer technologies which them branches out and raises the number of digital performances and productions.
Another case of what is under the title of digital performance is dance productions, using software and computer techniques such as advanced animation and motion capturing
Motion capture
Motion capture, motion tracking, or mocap are terms used to describe the process of recording movement and translating that movement on to a digital model. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, and medical applications, and for validation of computer vision and robotics...
. You can project images of your virtual dancers made on to the stage. As you are using computer techniques and software to project on to a stage, which has a live audience the performance/production, then becomes digital due to the elements involved. Software that is highly involved with digital performance is custom-made motion sensing; this software allows you to control images, avatars, sounds and lighting live on stage. This is important for today’s artists and audiences, as audiences are looking for something new and memorable. Artists are equally looking to create something new that will grab audiences, this software allows this to happen as you can experiment and change as much as you like live.
Communication through the Internet has been classed as a type of digital performance as it has been theorized as a type of virtual performance of the self. As this is so, people have already stated digital performance as being everywhere, which has led to digital performance being modernized itself. It has been noted as incorporating the elements of electronics
Electronics
Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...
in everyday life through the communicational and production elements.
Some strands of performing have always been seen as multimedia forms such as theatre, dance and performance art. Dance involves an intimate relationship with music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
for a start. All three of the above are involved with visual aspects such as sets, props, lighting and costume which are all a part of the production to enhance the body/bodies in a space. Using such aspects makes the performance become multimedia and that is becoming more advanced with the new techniques that computers are upgrading to therefore making digital performance a strong and popular area to study.