Multimedia Performance links strongly with the current issues in drama, theatre and performance, considering that the Digital has dominated our society. The Digital’s domination has become a popular a form, because of our dependence on it. We rely on the Digital’s ability to provide us information on certain topic of interests e.g. going on social media to see friends and family’s current activities. However, because of our reliance on digital media, there has been an ongoing debate regarding the Digital’s contribution to performance.
In Multimedia Performance, Klich and Scheer define the Digital as a representation of ‘a varying physical quantity such as sound waves, as discrete signals interpreted through numbers.’ (2012, 179). However, digitisation can consequently transform media ‘from forms of actual inscription of “reality” into variable interfaces for rendering the raw data of reality’ (179). Furthermore, Mark Hansen explains that certain realities contained in digital databases can ‘easily manifest in any number of accessible interface, from a video to an immersive world’ (179). In addition to this, Hansen elaborates further on this manifestation: ‘digital era and the phenomenon of digitisation itself can be understood as demarcating a shift in the correlation of two crucial terms: media and body’ (179).
The video above is a multimedia performance piece entitled Modell 5, created by Granular Synthesis. The piece illustrated the concept of digital hypermediacy, allowing the audience to witness a rather opaque performance. Granular Synthesis succeeded in delivering an insight to the world of digital, by portraying the correlation between media and body. For instance, the performance saw artist Akemi Takeya’s face manipulated as her images are violently distorted, thus exposing the performance’s digital nature.
The video above is another example of a digitised performance piece. However, compared to Modell 5 this particular performance entitled Can You See Me Now? By Blast Theory is a very physical piece, involving members of the public as well as artists from the internationally renowned group. Can You See Me Now? takes place in two locations that have a connection with each other, a physical city and a virtual city. The virtual city is a replica of the physical city, for online players to roam around in. The object of the performance is for the online players to avoid getting caught by the runners in the physical city. If an online player does get caught by a runner however, they are immediately eliminated from the game. Blast Theory’s aim for this game is to emphasise on the concept of absence and presence. The online players are absent in time and place during this chase, until they’re at the point when they are seen by the runners in the physical city by referring to them by the name of the person whom the online player has not seen for a long time. The effect of the runner calling out the name of the player’s associate allows some aesthetic engagement for the player, considering the player has not seen this particular person for a while, thus this person being absent whilst the player’s online avatar is present under the name of said associate.
Our class conducted our own performance involving the notion of absence and presence. As a group, we have decided to take a stroll around Lincoln and take pictures of particular interest, such as locations, objects and scenery. These pictures would then be uploaded on Twitter under the phrase ‘#LincolnNoir’ along with a short story that will allow these pictures to come alive. Whilst we were present during the picture taking and our online audience on Twitter were absent for our adventure, these stories would hopefully allow our audience to feel a sense of awe and presence after viewing our pictures.
Works Cited:
Blast Theory (2010) Can You See Me Now? [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX4kZvEllwY [Accessed 6 January 2015].
Granular Synthesis (2011) Modell 5 [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATWljMbvVTg [Accessed 6 January 2015].
Klich, R. and Scheer, E. (2012) Multimedia Performance. Basingstoke Palgrave: Macmillian.