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Object and Identity in a Digital Age
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Maria Chatzichristodoulou (aka Maria X), Janis Jefferies and Rachel Zerihan
Interfaces of Performance
An interface is the boundary or shared space between two areas or systems. It allows for interaction between two entities that would otherwise be unable to communicate with each other. In that sense, an interface offers another perspective of seeing, experiencing and considering one's given state, through interaction with an 'other'. For the next edition of CHArt, we propose to present our forthcoming collection of essays Interfaces of Performance (Forthcoming: Ashgate, 2009 as part of the Digital Research in the Arts and Humanities series).
In calling this collection Interfaces of Performance we are gesturing towards the myriad aesthetic, experiential and interdisciplinary opportunities offered by contemporary performances that 'dare' interact with an 'other' system of disciplines by integrating technologies into their practice. Marking a shared space of exchange and dialogue as well as a site of contestation and tension, the interfaces proposed herein are positions inhabited by critical cultural theory and innovative interdisciplinary works. In profiling and examining current manifestations of such works, we demonstrate models and strategies practitioners are developing - or frequently appropriating - as a means to their artistic ends, which disturb boundaries of traditional performance and create new paradigms of emergent practice and discourse. The interfaces in this volume reflect social as well as cultural and technological attempts to enhance, question and strengthen the scope of the relationship between one and other in the sphere of performance-making and as such point towards wider relational matters of embodiment, alterity and mechanisms of connectivity.
As technologies become increasingly integrated into theatre and performance practice, this volume aims to investigate emergent paradigms while at the same time consciously avoids offering or imposing taxonomies upon such varied practices. Taxonomies require the classification of things into groups based on their formal characteristics and often entail hierarchies. Interfaces of Performance has been designed to extend current discourse in a field that is, on occasions, led by formalist analysis focusing on technology per se. Such analysis runs the risk of approaching practices as static outcomes rather than (a)live cultural phenomena that are always in the process of becoming. The proposed approach intends to unpack conceptual, aesthetic and societal elements of performance practice that are investigating the strategic use of a diverse spectrum of technologies as a means to artistic ends. The focus of this analysis is neither on the formal characteristics of these practices, nor on the types of technology employed; instead, we embark on an investigation of the practitioners' ideas, objectives and concerns, we ask how these artists employ technologies in order to research new dramaturgies and methodologies for the creation of more e/affective experiences for, and encounters with, their audiences.
Maria Chatzichristodoulou [aka Maria X] is a cultural practitioner (curator, producer, performer) and Lecturer in Theatre and Performance at the School of Arts and New Media, University of Hull (Scarborough campus). Maria was co-director of Fournos (Athens, Greece 1997-2002), co-founder/co-director of Medi@terra Festival (Athens, Greece, 1998-2002) and initiator/co-director (with Rachel Zerihan) of Intimacy: Across Digital and Visceral Performance (London, 2008).
Janis Jefferies is an artist, writer and curator, Professor of Visual Arts at the Department of Computing, Goldsmiths University of London, Director of the Constance Howard Resource and Research Centre in Textiles and Artistic Director of Goldsmiths Digital Studios (UK). She is associate researcher with Hexagram (Institute of Media, Arts and Technologies, Montreal, Canada).
Dr. Rachel Zerihan has recently completed her PhD exploring Catharsis in Contemporary Female Performance (Roehampton). Zerihan is drawn to performances that play in hybrid spaces that emerge from explicit experiments in theatre and body art. She has published writing in Body, Space, Technology Journal, Dance Theatre Journal and Esse: Arts and Opinions and is a sessional lecturer at Queen Mary University of London.