Making new : encounters through new technology in performance

Scott, JE

Abstract

This paper engages with the key issue of newness in the field of performance and ‘new’ technology, arguing through that rather than simply engaging with new technology, this is rather a field of performance which by its nature and predominant inclinations, makes new, whatever tools are employed.

Manovich (2001) argues that the language of new media is not ‘a single language’ but ‘various conventions used by designers of new media objects’ (7), while Bolter and Grusin (2000) claim that all new technology can do is ‘define itself in relationship to earlier technologies’ (28). Kember and Zylinksa (2012) have recently developed the discourse in the field. Rather than looking at the particular conventions of new media objects or the relationships between ‘old’ and ‘new’, their proposal is ‘to refocus the new media debate on a set of processes’ (xv) and it is this provocation which leads my argument in this presentation, as a ‘new’ media practitioner-researcher.

In the live media performance work I make, I am drawn to and facilitated by the use of new technology. However, the newness of the forms I generate lies in actions, encounters and processes with and through the media objects present rather than in the objects themselves. In this presentation, I argue that a focus on newness as positioned in such processes provides a more productive perspective on the work made. I also suggest that being drawn to create and analyse performance using such tools indicates an exploratory inclination in this field, towards the possibilities of the encounter between human and technology and what is made new in this ‘interlocking of technical and biological processes’ (Kember and Zylinska 2012: xiii).

Citation

Scott, J. (2014, September). Making new : encounters through new technology in performance. Presented at TaPRA Annual Conference, Royal Holloway University

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: TaPRA Annual Conference
• Conference Location: Royal Holloway University
• Start Date: Sep 1, 2014
• Deposit Date: Nov 30, 2015
• Publisher URL: http://tapra.org/conference-2014/
• Related Public URLs: http://tapra.org/
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference