Digital performance

Digital Performance is a very wide category filled with a range of productions, it is a generic performance but with an extra element of incorporating and integrating computer technologies and techniques into the production. You can incorporate multimedia into any type of performance whether it is live on a theatre stage or in the street. Anything as small as video recordings or a visual image classes the production as multimedia and therefore a digital performance. When the key role in a performance is the computer technologies rather than it being an additional role is when it is classed as a digital performance. This can be as little as projections on a screen in front of a live audience to creating and devising a performance in an online environment to using animation and sensing software’s. Digital Performance is a very wide category filled with a range of productions, it is a generic performance but with an extra element of incorporating and integrating computer technologies and techniques into the production. You can incorporate multimedia into any type of performance whether it is live on a theatre stage or in the street. Anything as small as video recordings or a visual image classes the production as multimedia and therefore a digital performance. When the key role in a performance is the computer technologies rather than it being an additional role is when it is classed as a digital performance. This can be as little as projections on a screen in front of a live audience to creating and devising a performance in an online environment to using animation and sensing software’s. If we were to look at the history of performance itself we would be able to find traces of digital performance from centuries ago, where it may be an old type of performance it is made new everyday by the increase in software and techniques and even by the uniqueness of performers' works, meanings and experiments. It is a continuing job to try and see how the acceptance of technology can increase the effects and spectacles of performances and visual arts. Performances are normally reliant on the audience and obviously to receive a good reception from the audience so with the ongoing integration of multimedia within productions surprises the audience and keeps them on edge. It also deals with the emotional and sensorial impact of the audiences. The social impact it has after the performance is out in the world and what meanings have come of the performance from different cliques of people. The Digital Performance Archive stores a lot of physical and catalogued archives from the 20th century, as they carried out a research project, which involved the increase and creative use of computer technology, and techniques within live theatre and dance productions to even cyberspace interactive dramas and webcasts. Looking at a broad range of diverse productions would have enhanced their research project as they saw how each type of performance was affected and even how new types of performance came about due to the involvement of computer technologies and techniques and all other multimedia sources. Happenings also from the 20th century included new and emerging forms of drama and genres in performance; this occurred due to the active and escalating role of computer technology within all types of performances and productions. It became a significant and very important role within the society of live theatre. Not only did it start to play a key role within theatre it also became a key role within our whole society, with businesses and education involving and using computers more and more as a convenience. As our society became more reliant on computers in everyday life it is exciting to then see how artists and performers use this everyday convenience to create new productions. CD-ROMs, video games and countless installations exaggerated and performed by users, upped the level of interactive potential of computers. With computers becoming more and more accessible and popular as well as advanced with time so are the performances that contain them. From the first digital performance to present day trends have been set and this has been helped by the upgrades that surround computers. Artists have followed each other's works and therefore set trends of their own whilst the technology has set its own trends through upgrades and new software's coming out which appeal to artists in the field. Another trend that is apparent is theoretical trends to do with all digital productions. Online environments are a strong base for theoretical trends as the frameworks are similar and sometimes the same. The largest base for theatre in the world is the World Wide Web; the Internet is seen as a satisfying place for relaxation and offers everyone who uses the Internet their ‘fifteen megabytes of fame.' Every single person who uses online networking sites, blogs, chat rooms, MOOs and IRC is creating their own performance with the use of e-friendships. Therefore it is not just the artists who deliberately devise theatrical events via the use of computer techniques and technologies. The whole catalogue of Digital Performance is so diverse and a wide spread that it creates new and different visual and stylistic aspects. Computers have so many platforms available to create performances on that each production allows the artist/s or companies to gain extraordinary and unique experiences, new genres and experience new existences and beings via virtual realities. The relationship formed between technology and art is a wonderful one. Two completely different areas joined together to create something new. They blend so well together and complement one another perfectly to become a strand under digital performance. ‘Performance is undertaking a shift in the conception of technology’. As the educational curriculum also upgrades with the latest technologies, school/college/university students are becoming more aware of the techniques they can include in performances and they want to involve the digital side as it is seen as more modern nowadays and appeals to a wide audience. Performers and devisors of digital performance productions have to approach the aspects of technology in diverse ways to be able to reach different meanings, content, drama, the impact of visuals and the audience-performer relationship. The computer is seen as the middle man, who fixes lasting problems rather than creating original and new performance processes and hype, in digital performance.