Maria Chatzichristodoulou
Cyberformance? Digital or Networked Performance? Cybertheaters? Or Virtual Theatres? … or all of the above?
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Abstract: Steve Dixon, in the preface to his book Digital Performance (2007), acknowledges the problematic nature of the term, which is due to the wide-ranging applications of both its elements: ‘digital’ and ‘performance’. According to Dixon, ‘“Digital” has become a loose and generic term (…) and the term “performance” has acquired wide-ranging applications and different nuances (…)’ (p. x). Though the terms remain contested, there is no doubt that the last two decades have witnessed a proliferation of performance practices that unfold not in physical or proximal environments but online, in purpose-built platforms or appropriated virtual environments and worlds. This paper will offer a condensed art historical overview of the newly emergent genre of digital performance (or whatever else you want to call it), focusing in particular on performance practices that develop exclusively (or primarily) online.
Bio: Maria Chatzichristodoulou [aka Maria X] is a cultural practitioner (curator, performer, producer, writer), Director of Postgraduate Studies and Lecturer in Theatre and Performance at the School of Arts and New Media, University of Hull, and holds a PhD in Art and Computational Technologies from Goldsmiths University of London. She is co-editor of the volume Interfaces of Performance (Ashgate, 2009) and the forthcoming volume Intimacy Across Visceral and Digital Performance (Palgrave MacMillan), which follows the Intimacy festival and symposium that Maria initiated and co-directed in London (2007). She also co-editor of the forthcoming volume From Black Box to Second Life: Theatre and Performance in Virtual Worlds, which follows a day of round table discussions Maria initiated at the University of Hull (Scarborough, 2011).
