User:Max Dovey/Reading Writing Research Methodologies/maxThesisoutline

Thesis Outline 3.0

===Does the use of media technology challenge authenticity in performance art?===

Abstract
There is a debate regarding the the ontology of performance and what distinguishes it from other cultural forms. The critical discussion is at its most potent in regards to the use of media in performance art. A simplified summary is that authenticity resides within the original and that technological media is a secondary representation.
I will trace a history of performance art that uses media and technology to challenge the current discussion regarding live performance. Looking specifically at works of performance art that are produced and performed with media and technology I will illustrate a history of works that consistently investigate the notion of the authentic in technological based performance art. I will connect up performance art’s persistent interest in the body and the machine and how that can help further our understanding regarding the debate between ‘live’ and ‘media’.
Through this process I will situate my own practice within a performance art history that also addresses the importance of live in a contemporary context.

I am not going to talk about the relationship between performance art and media representation (commonly referred to as documentation) as that is not technology applied into the realization of the work.

Section 1 : Context

Introduction Some contemporary case studies that demonstrate the importance of live in mass culture but also the tension between the physical and technological in live performance.
Summarize the existing debate surrounding performance and technology between Peggy Phelan and Phillip Auslander. Introduce why the discussion is prominent in a wide cultural field but should be examined within performance art history. Define the principles of performance art and why this idealogy is useful in the discussion regarding live culture.
Using examples of performance art that show the relationship between man and machine to understand the contrasting views around performance and technology.

Theoretical context.
The theoretical context is currently situated between arguments put forward by Phillip Auslander in ‘Liveness’ (1999) and Peggy Phelan’s ‘Unmarked’ (1993).
Both apply Walter Benjamin’s understanding of a phenomenology sensation attached to the original of a work of art. Both have different views on how technology or media affects the authenticity of the original in performance art.
‘The aura’ in relation to performance art is the (original) act that ‘deprecated in technical reproduced’ . Auslander argues a broad claim that because of technological prominence and our mediated saturated world that all performance genres are now mediatized to some extent. Peggy Phelan opposes this view to argue that ‘performances only life is in the present.
Performance cannot be saved, recorded, documented, or otherwise participate in the circulation of reproductions of representation, once it does so, it becomes something other than performance’ (Phelan:41)

By looking at performances artists application of technology in the realization of live work I will show how these two opposing views have infact enfolded and enhanced each other. I am looking exclusively at performance art because it has consistently challenged how the physical performance is represented and reproduced.
The works I will talk about demonstrate a combination of technical application and physical act to produce a live experience that is shaped simultaneously by the technology and the human.

priortised physical presence in relation to mediated representation, and has directly illustrated this contrast by performing alongside technological interpretation / representation.

to describe what is at stake when technology is encorporated into performance art.

Section 2 : Performance art

Terminology:
Define performance art and its specific ontology, it is based upon a physical presence and a temporal present of (human) being. (Phelan)
Performance art defines itself on the principles of physical presence and a temporally present aspect to make it live. Since its inception at the beginning of the 20th century it has challenged how physical presence of a body and a temporal duration can be altered with the application of technology.
This aspect of performance art history will help us understand the current debate regarding authenticity in performance and its relation between the physical and the technological.

Summary : I will be specifically looking at Performance art pieces that use automation and (or) a media representation in the realization of the work.
Performance works that both rely on the physicality of a body and the interpretation and application of computational media or technological/ digital devices. I some of these works there is a feedback loop occurring between a body and a mechanical system that is described in Cybernetic research that should be noted but is not the focus of this essay.
The art works that I have selected serve to illustrate the divide between man and machine by simultaneously applying both a physical presence of a performer alongside a media or technology that both operate concurrently to produce the work.

Performance art examples:

• Futurists – Use of mechanical devices in performance to create a ‘synthetic theatre’ They wanted to create a theatre without physical presence. That can then be seen later on in telematics experiements (sher doruff)
• Fluxus – Conceptual art movement , Fluxus performance pieces based on scores , that the work can be acted out in both a different time and place. That the time based recording of a work can be acted upon by someone at a different time or place.
  So that the artworks just needed physical presence. Without the physical presence but just the time based technology. (John Cage, happenings, yoko ono)
• Dan Graham – present continuous pasts. A room covered in mirrors with a video camera recording the physical actions of the viewer. The recording of the camera is relayed to a video monitor so that the viewer sees both themselves in the mirror and themselves with an 8 second delay in the video monitor.
  The work is created on the physical presence of the body (the viewer) and highlighting the delay in the video camera depicting your actions.
  
• Contemporary – my work, physically embodied talking alongside technical interpretation to realize the work.
  

Why I am excluding net art telepresent performances –
The performances of Sher Doruff and the Waag connected! Program serve to connect to locations to make them a ‘live’ connection. It seems more a performance of the technology rather than combining the physical and temporal presence of both man and machine. For me, What this type of work does highlight is the importance of the physical presence of an audience and what is lost when two performers or live acts are simply telepresent connected. It proves what is lost in telepresence. ‘sensing presence’ research. The aura of technology. Something is lost when the technological apparatus is put at the front of an encounter.

Section 3:

Contemporary examples that disrupt the debate, bots, cyborgs generative data.. Performance art in current cultural context, what can we learn abouts its mass reproduction?

Looking forward:

Thesis Outline 2.0

Killer Quesion shortlist

How performance with digital technology has changed the experience of live art and Theatre

list of examples (my work)
performing with streaming data (Twitter Theatre)
improvising with computer speech to text interpretations (Foley Narrative)
selling kickstarter ideas, using data as material to perform with (Bank of Broken Dreams)
Other works Karen by Blast Theory - chatbot created to respond to you
betnik - shopper bot on Darknet - random shopper buys things and sends to gallery
Lauren Mccarthy - http://socialturkers.com/ - performing with input from mecahnical turk users
Hello Lamp post - Interactive street furniture - street objects text you
Futurist Synthetic Theatre - Variety Theatre productions by Futurists
Locative media - soundwalks by Duncan speakman -

How has our understanding of live been changed by performance and technology?
Thesis Outline Max Dovey Jan 20/01/2015

How does technology mediate performance and our experience of liveness?
To investigate authenticity in performance and the mediation of the live act.

Introduction

Within this Thesis I will investigate why the authenticity of live still resides within the physiological when live experience that uses digital technology is still commonly viewed as a reproduction and (in) authentic.
The Internet has become a live medium, broadcasting in real time with continually updating websites and mobile devices that update and stay connected to the pulse of digital communication.
In the past, performance events in music, theatre & TV would be recorded and played back but now the speed and bandwidth of digital creates a live stream or a real-time mediation of a live event.
The immediate, that was once the unmediated direct (physical) encounter is now mediated through video & audio streaming software, social media & 'real-time' coverage.
Now that technology operates within the same time as live experience, why is it still considered a reproduction or mediation in comparison to the physiological presence in time and space?

I will begin by looking at the current definitions of live within performance theory and mass culture before approaching the subject with a technological analysis of 'real-time' to look at the importance of time and liveness in performance. I will bring my practice into the thesis to highlight the tension between the physical and the temporal when defining the authenticity of live performance.
I will discuss the liveness of computers in relation to embodied performance and how we should move towards understanding live as a temporal ontology, rather than a physical ontology.

Theory background

It has to be agreed that liveness has more to do with time and 'now-ness' (Dixon: 132)

The theoretical context is currently situated between arguments put forward by Phillip Auslander in ‘Liveness’ (1999), Peggy Phelan’s ‘Unmarked’ (1993) and Matthew Caurey’s ‘Theatre and Performance in Digital Culture’ (2006).
Peggy Phelan defines the aura of live in its un-reproducibility and ephemerality while Phillip Auslander defines live by its reproducibility. He thinks that live is a product of technological reproduction and that before recorded media the idea of something 'live' didn't exist.
Both provide a strong backdrop for my thesis but look at the authenticity of live to be a phenomenological ontology and often define the authenticity of liveness with physical presence.
When technology has become so ubiquitous and mediates experiences in near real time it seems slack to just distinguish the authenticity of what live is based upon physical definitions. When live events are being directly mediated or our mobile devices are interacting feeding back into our experiences distinguishing live based on its physical or technological form seems dated as technology continues to converge into our live experience(s).
I will draw on the current theoretical debate to create a temporal analysis of live and to define lives authenticity by its temporality, bringing in my practice that combines both 'real-time' data and physical performer.
What is of particular interest is that my work dwells between the two understandings of liveness as I combine data with embodied performance to create a sense of live authenticity.

Structure

Performance

Part 1 Chapter aims - present theorists on the authentic being the real, the unmediated moment that is a physical ontology, not technological. Arguments in popular culture that the aura is located as a physical attribute detached from media.

The authentic and the real - Defined by chosen texts (Auslander,Phelan)
'Put away your phones' live events and technology in mass culture. The current urge in music events and theatre for audiences to put away their phones to experience the live moment. The essentialist idea that the authentic live moment is physical and isolated from (mobile) media.
The psychological sensation of the real & the authentic occurring in the body

Refs

• Media as simulacrum - Baudrillard
• A sense of presence

Real-Time

Part 2 Chapter aims - Real-time as a technological form creates the authentic liveness. Data and its role in our temporal experience. Analyse real-time as a structure tempo contrasted to the flowing nature of ephemeris time. Performing against it.

The authenticity of the immediate - live as a temporal ontology

Refs

• The illusion of real-time (media object)
• Living in perpetual now (Douglas Rushkoff 'Present Shock')
• A brief history of Real-time - Makul Patel

Interviews

Part 3 Conduct interviews with some theatre makers, artists who use technology in their work to create a live experience. (Data-driven narratives)

OUTPUT

Part 4 Chapter Aims - To bring examples of my work and others into the debate to highlight my position in relation to the Phelan / Auslander debate.

Chapter Aims - To bring examples of my work and others into the debate to highlight my position in relation to the the Phelan / Auslander debate.

Essay on method

real-time performance

Bots, computational data & improvisation

Bibliograpghy

Liveness and Performance in a Mediated Culture, Phillip Auslander, 1999

Digital performance: A History of New Media in Theatre, Dance, Performance art and Installation, Steve Dixon, 2007

Unmasked: The politics of performance, Peggy Phelan, 1993

Theatre and Performance in Digital Culture, Matthew Caurey, 2006

Art in the Age of technical reproducibility, Walter Benjamin, 1936

Thesis Outline 1.0

Thesis outline Max Dovey Jan 14/01/2015

How does technology mediate performance and our experience of liveness? 
To investigate authenticity in performance and the mediation of the live act.

Introduction
I am investigating the notion of live with performance and technology.
I perform with data streams and computer feedback, the transient nature of real time data can create an authentic, ephemeral moment with technology. The infrastructure of the internet and its mobility means information is continually transmitted and becomes 'live' with real-time interfaces and always on devices.
I want to analyse what live is in a technological and performance context and how its authenticity can be mediated. Through doing this i can further my understanding of why my performance based practice, that combines real-time media and embodied physical presence, challenges the authenticity of liveness and its relation between temporal and physical ontologies.

Theory background

it has to be agreed that liveness has more to do with time and 'now-ness' (Dixon:132)

The theoretical context is currently situated between arguments put forward by Phillip Auslander in ‘Liveness’ (1999), Peggy Phelan’s ‘Unmarked’ (1993) and Matthew Caurey’s ‘Theatre and Performance in Digital Culture’ (2006). 
Phelan defines the aura of live in its unreproducability and ephemerality while Auslander defines live by its reproducibility, that before recorded media the live didn't exist. Both look at the authenticity of live to be a phenomenological ontology and define liveness with the aura of presence, but when presence is (re)created with this 'now-ness' of real-time technology the aura of live becomes technological, not physical.
In my work i challenge both theoretical positions because i combine embodied performance with real time technology to explore the authentic within live performance.

My approach will be similar to Caurey : The ontology of performance (liveness) which exists before and after mediatization has been altered within the space of technology. (Caurey) to look at performance within the ontology of the technological, specifically performance and real time technology.
The existing debate looks at performance as a physiological ontology, id like to look at liveness as a temporal object so that the debate around authenticity in performance can be looked at within the networked, computational context (e.g. data and performance).

Structure

Part 1

Performance
Chapter aims - present theorists on the authentic being the real, the unmediated moment that is a physical ontology, not technological. arguments in popular culture that the aura is located as a physical attribute detached from media.

• 'Put away your phones' Live events and technology in mass culture . The current urge in music events and theatre for audiences to put away their phones to experience the live moment. The essentialist idea that the authentic live moment is physical and isolated from (mobile) media.
• The psychological sensation of the real & the authentic occurring in the body
• media as simulacrum - Baurdrillard
• A sense of presence (or the persistent problem of presence)

Part 2

Real-Time
Chapter aims - Real-time as a technological form creates the authentic liveness. Performing against them

• The authenticity of the immediate - live as a temporal ontology
• The illusion of real-time (media object)
• Living in perpetual now (Douglas rushkoff 'Present Shock')
• A brief history of Real-time - Makul Patel

Part 3

Interviews - conduct interviews with some theatre makers, artists who use technology in their work to create a live experience.

Part 4

OUTPUT

• Chapter Aims - To bring examples of my work and others into the debate to highlight my position in relation to the the Phelan / Auslander debate.
• Essay on method
• real-time performance
• Bots, computational data & improvisation

Bibliograpghy

Liveness and Performance in a Mediated Culture, Phillip Auslander, 1999

Digital performance: A History of New Media in Theatre, Dance, Performance art and Installation, Steve Dixon, 2007

Unmasked: The politics of performance, Peggy Phelan, 1993

Theatre and Performance in Digital Culture, Matthew Caurey, 2006

Art in the Age of technical reproducibility, Walter Benjamin, 1936