Virtualities
Digital technologies, with their myriad forms, functions and radical cultural reverberations, have also become ensconced within performance art and cinematic productions. This cluster looks at how the digital and the living act together and upon each other as part of hybrid creations and ecosystems.
On stage, but is it live? A first axis seeks to understand how digital technologies are transforming the present and, most likely, the future, of performing arts. Is the nature of performing arts and cinema – their unique liveness – mutating in relation to their incorporation of digital means? What scenarios should we try to avert? What potentials should we encourage?
For those who specialise in digital technologies, this cluster also proposes an examination of how the deployment of the latter in performance arts and cinema generates novel perspectives on digital technologies themselves, perhaps even contributing to new developments in digital media.
Finally, what of the production, communication and reception ecosystems of performance arts and cinema? What constructive ‘powers of the virtual’ are they tapping into? What pathways are proving personally harmful or morally and professionally inviable?
Virtuality(ies) invites researchers, professionals, and artists to share projects that shed light on the challenges of the digital revolution within the performing and cinematic arts.