Avatars, Activism and Postdigital Performance: Precarious Intermedial Identities

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Description

In the context of the postdigital age, where technology is increasingly part of our social and political world, Avatars, Activism and Postdigital Performance traces how identity can be created, developed, hijacked, manipulated, sabotaged and explored through performance in postdigital cultures. Considering how technology is reshaping performance, this timely collection reveals how we engage in performance practices through expanded notions of intermediality, knotted networks and layering. This book examines the artist as activist and producer of avatars, and how digital doubles, artificial intelligence and semi-automated politics are problematizing and expanding our discussions of identity. Using a range of examples in theatre, film and internet-based performance practices, chapters examine the uncertain boundaries of networked informational selves in mediatized cultures, the impacts of machine algorithms, apps and the consequences of digital legacies. Case studies include James Camerons Avatar, Blast Theorys Karen, Ontroerend Goeds A Game of You, Randy Rainbows online videos, Sisters Grimms Calpurnia Descending, Dead Centres Lippy and Chekhovs First Play and Jo Scotts practice-as-research in place-mixing. This is an incisive study for scholars, students and practitioners interested in the wider conversations around identity-formation in postdigital cultures.

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Starting with Matthew Causeys question does an intermedial performance research group need to exist, this edited collection signals a transition from an intermedial to a postdigital way of thinking. It beautifully knots current debates with diverse practices and expanded notions of performance related to avatars, activism and postdigital identities and aesthetics. -- Christina Papagiannouli, University of South Wales, UK

Author Bio

Liam Jarvis is a Senior Lecturer in Theatre at the University of Essex, UK. Karen Savage is Head of the School of Fine & Performing Arts at the University of Lincoln, UK.