Digital performance and posthhumanist anthropology

PDF (ελληνικά)
Published: Jul 17, 2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/grsr.17954
Keywords:
digital performance posthumanism anthropocentrism embodiment liveness
Βασιλική Λαλιώτη
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Abstract

Over the last two decades the incorporation of digital technologies in the performing arts has given rise to a wide discussion, within the field of performance studies, regarding performance ontology. Despite the variety of the views that have been formulated, this discussion to a great extent reproduces binarisms of mind/body, nature/culture, and human/technology, which have become limited frameworks through which to articulate the multiple ways in which participants are engaged in various digital performances. Departing from specific theoretical and methodological concerns that have been developed in posthumanist anthropology, in this paper I explore the ways in which questioning these binarisms may enrich the study of digital performance and  lead to a deeper understanding of the relationship between humans and their environment within the frame of the emerging digital cultures.     

Article Details
  • Section
  • Articles
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g. post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (preferably in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
Author Biography
Βασιλική Λαλιώτη, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Assistant Professor (anthropology of performance) at the Faculty of Music Studies, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
References
Foucault, M. (2008[1973]). Οι λέξεις και τα πράγματα. Μια αρχαιολογία των επιστημών του ανθρώπου (μτφρ.: Κ. Παπαγιώργης). Αθήνα: Γνώση.
Gibson, W. (1989). Νευρομάντης (μτφρ.: Δ. Σταματιάδης). Αθήνα: Aquarius.
Haraway, D. (2014[1991]). Ανθρωποειδή κυβόργια και γυναίκες. Η επανεπινόηση της φύσης (μτφρ.: Π. Μαρκέτου). Αθήνα: Αλεξάνδρεια.
Latour, B. (2000[1993]). Ουδέποτε υπήρξαμε μοντέρνοι. Δοκίμιο συμμετρικής ανθρωπολογίας (μτφρ.: Φ. Τερζάκης). Αθήνα: Σύναλμα.
Lévy, P. (1999). Δυνητική πραγματικότητα (Realité virtuelle). H φιλοσοφία του πολιτισμού και του κυβερνοχώρου (μτφρ.: Μ. Καραχάλιος). Αθήνα: Κριτική.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (2016[1945]). Φαινομενολογία της αντίληψης (μτφρ.: Κ. Καψαμπέλη). Αθήνα: Νήσος.
Παπαηλία, Π. και Πετρίδης, Π. (2015). Ανθρωπολογία μπροστά στην οθόνη. [Κεφάλαιο Συγγράμματος]. Στο Π. Παπαηλία και Π. Πετρίδης, Ψηφιακή εθνογραφία [ηλεκτρ. βιβλ.]. Αθήνα: Σύνδεσμος Ελληνικών Ακαδημαϊκών Βιβλιοθηκών. Κεφ 1. Πηγή: http://hdl.handle.net/11419/6118 (Πρόσβαση 22 Αυγούστου 2016).
Auslander, Ph. (2002). Live from cyberspace: or, I was sitting at my computer this guy appeared he thought I was a bot. PAJ, 24 (1), pp.16-21.
Auslander, Ph. (2008). Liveness: performance in a mediated culture. New York: Routledge.
Badmington, N. (2003). Theorizing posthumanism. Cultural Critique 53(1), pp. 10-27.
Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and simulation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Baxi, U. (2007). Human rights in a posthhuman world: critical essays. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Beeman, W.O. (1993). The anthropology of theatre and spectacle. Annual Review of Anthropology, 22, pp. 369-393.
Benford, St. and Giannachi, G. (2011). Performing mixed reality. Cambridge, London: MIT Press.
Birringer, J. (1998). Media and performance. Along the border. Baltimore, London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Blau, H. (1990). Universals of performance; or amortizing play. In R. Schechner and W. Appel (eds), By means of performance: intercultural studies of theatre and ritual (pp. 250-273). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Boellstorff, T. (2011). Placing the virtual body: avatar, chora, cypherg. In F. E. Mascia-Lees (ed), A Companion to the anthropology of the body and embodiment (pp. 504–520). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Boellstorff, T. (2014). An afterword in four binarisms. In M. Grimshaw (ed.), The Oxford handbook of virtuality (pp. 739-746). Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
Boellstorff, T., Nardi B., Pearce C., και Taylor T.L. (2012). Ethnography and virtual worlds. A handbook of method. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Braidotti, R. (2013). The posthuman. Cambridge, MA: Polity.
Broadhurst, S. (2004). The Jeremiah project: interaction, reaction, and performance. TDR, 48 (4), pp.47-57.
Cairncross, Fr. (1998). The death of distance: how the communications revolution will change our lives. London: Orion Business Books.
Causey, M. (1999). The screen test of the double: the uncanny performance in the space of technology. Theatre Journal, 51 (4), pp. 383-394.
Causey, M., Meehan E., and O’ Dwyer N. (2015). General introduction: in the after-event of the virtual. In M. Causey et.al. (eds), The performing subject in space of technology. Through the virtual, towards the real (pp. 1-10). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Davies, T. (1997). Humanism. London, New York: Routledge.
Dixon, St. (2007). Digital performance. A history of new media in theater, dance, performance art, and installation. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
Eckersall, P., Grehan, H. and Scheer, E. (2017). New media dramaturgy: performance, media and new-materialism (New Dramaturgies). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Goody, J. (2010). Renaissances: the one or the many?. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Gupta, A. and Ferguson, J. (1997). Discipline and practice: «the field» as site, method, and location in anthropology. In A. Gupta and J. Ferguson (eds), Anthropological locations. Boundaries and grounds of a field science (pp. 1-46). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hackenberger, M. (2012). Marginal bodies, altered states, and subhumans: (dis)articulations between physical and virtual realities in Centro, São Paulo. In N. Whitehead and M. Wesch (eds), Human no more: digital subjectivities, unhuman subjects, and the end of anthropology (pp. 199-216). Boulder: University Press of Colorando.
Harvey, Tr. S. (2014). Virtual worlds: an ethnomusicological perspective. In M. Grimshaw (ed.), The Oxford handbook of virtuality (378-391). Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
Hassan, I. (1977). Prometheus as performer: towards a posthumanist culture?. In M. Benamou and Ch. Caramello (eds), Performance in postmodern culture (pp. 201-217). Madison: Coda Press.
Hayles, N. K. (1996). Boundary disputes: homeostasis, reflexivity, and the foundations of cybernetics. In R. Markley (ed.), Virtual realities and their discontents (pp. 11-37). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Hayles, N. K. (1999). How we became posthuman: virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature, and informatics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hellsten, S. K. (2012) «The meaning of life» during a transition from modernity to transhumanism and posthumanity. Journal of Anthropology, 1-7, doi:10.1155/2012/210684.
Hobart, A. and Kapferer, Br. (eds) (2005). Aesthetics and performance: formations of symbolic construction and experience. New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books.
Horst, H. and Miller, D. (2012). The digital and the human: a prospectus for digital anthropology. In H. A. Horst and D. Miller (eds.), Digital anthropology (pp. 3-35). London, New York: Berg.
Ingold, T. (1997). Eight themes in the anthropology of technology. Social Analysis: The International Journal of Social and Cultural Practice, 41(1), pp. 106-138.
Kirskey, E. (ed.). (2014). The multispecies salon. Durham: Duke University Press.
Klich, R. (2007). Performing posthuman perspective: Can You See Me Now?. Scan. Journal of media arts culture. http://scan.net.au/scan/journal/display.php?journal_id=91 (Πρόσβαση: 15 Σεπτεμβρίου 2017).
Kohn, E. (2013). How forests think: toward an anthropology beyond the human. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Kroker, A. (2001). The possessed individual. Technology and the French postmodern. Montréal: New World Perspectives Culture Texts Series.
Latour, Br. (1993). The pasteurization of France (Transl.: Alan Sheridan and John Law). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Latour, Br. (2000). When things strike back: a possible contribution of ‘science studies’ to the social sciences. British Journal of Sociology, 51 (1), pp.107-123.
Latour, Br. (2003). Politics of nature: how to bring the sciences into politics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Law, St. (2011). Humanism: a very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lévy, P. (1998). Becoming virtual: reality in the digital age. (Transl.: R. Bononno). New York: Plenum Trade.
Mascia-Lees, E. (2011). Introduction. In E. Mascia-Lees (ed.), A Companion to the anthropology of the body and embodiment (pp. 1-3). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Miller, D. and Slater, D. (2000). The Internet. An ethnographic approach. Oxford, New York: Berg.
Nardi, B. Α. (2009). My life as a night elf priest: an anthropological account of World of Warcraft. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press
Pérez, Ε. (2014). The expansion of theatrical space and the role of the spectator. Nordic Theatre Studies, 26(2), pp. 35-45.
Phelan, P. (1993). Unmarked: the politics of performance. London, New York: Routledge.
Pickering, A. (1995). The mangle of practice: time, agency, and science. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Pink, S., Horst, H. A. et al. (2016). Digital ethnography: principles and practice. California: Sage.
Popat, S. and Preece, K. (2012). Pluralistic presence: practicing embodiment with my avatar. In S. Broadhurst and J. Machon (eds), Identity, performance and technology: practices of empowerment, embodiment and technicity (pp. 160-174). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Postill, J. (2012). Digital politics and political engagement. In H.A. Horst and D. Miller (eds), Digital anthropology (pp. 165-184). London, New York: Berg.
Remshardt, R. (2008). Beyond performance studies: mediated performance and the posthuman. Culture, Language and Representation, 6, pp.47-64.
Salter, Ch. (2012). JND: an artistic experiment in bodily experience as research. In D. Peters et.al. (eds), Bodily expression in electronic music: perspectives on reclaimed performativity (pp. 181-200). London: Routledge.
Smart, A. and Smart, J. (2017). Posthumanism. Anthropological insights. Ontario: University of Toronto Press.
Stone, A. R. (1991). Will the real body please stand up?. In M. Benedikt (ed.), Cyberspace: first steps (pp. 81–118). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Taylor, T.L. (2002). Living digitally: embodiment in virtual worlds. In R. Schroeder (ed.), The social life of avatars: presence and interaction in shared virtual environments (pp. 40-62). London: Springer-Verlag.
Tufekci, Z. (2012). We were always human. In N.L. Whitehead and M. Wesch (eds), Human no more: digital subjectivities, unhuman subjects, and the end of anthropology (pp. 33-48). Boulder: University Press of Colorando.
Viveiros de Castro, E. (1998). Cosmological deixis and Amerindian perspectivism. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 4(3), pp.469–488.
Viveiros de Castro, E. (2014). Cannibal metaphysics. Minneapolis: Univocal.
Whitehead, N. L. (2002). Dark shamans: Kanaima and the poetics of violent death. Durham: Duke University Press.
Whitehead, N. L. (2009). Posthuman anthropology. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 16 (1), pp. 1-32.
Whitehead, N. L. (2012). Are we there yet? The end of anthropology is beyond the human. In N.L. Whitehead and M. Wesch (eds.), Human no more: digital subjectivities, unhuman subjects, and the end of anthropology (pp. 217-230). Boulder: University Press of Colorando.
Whitehead, N.L. and Wesch, M. (2012). Introduction: human no more. In N.L. Whitehead and M. Wesch (eds), Human no more: digital subjectivities, unhuman subjects, and the end of anthropology (pp. 1-10). Boulder: University Press of Colorando.
Wisniewski, K. (2012). Invisible caboclos and vagabond ethnographers: a look at ethnographic engagement in twenty-first-century Amazonia. In N.L. Whitehead and M. Wesch (eds), Human no more: digital subjectivities, unhuman subjects, and the end of anthropology (pp. 177-190). Boulder: University Press of Colorando.
Wolfe, C. (2010). What is posthumanism?. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.