Fernandez - Performing Technodrama

Critical EssayPerforming Technodrama: Towards a Technocultural Aesthetic in the Age of Digital Anxiety
10/29/13 1:45 PM
Published on Technoculture (http://tcjournal.org/drupal)

Home > Critical EssayPerforming Technodrama: Towards a Technocultural Aesthetic in the Age of Digital Anxiety
Critical EssayPerforming Technodrama:

Towards a Technocultural Aesthetic in the
Age of Digital Anxiety
Stephen Fernandez, The University of Waterloo
Abstract
The late-Twentieth century witnessed the emergence of Technodrama, a new theatrical form that
fuses mixed media elements with playacting and dramatic narrative. In contrast to earlier attempts at
integrating technology into drama (such as Richard Wagners and Bertolt Brechts incorporation of various
mixed media technologies into their theatrical works), the Technodramatic stage is a liminal space in
which a reconfiguration of creativity and experimentation takes place by way of the interaction between
live actors and technological devices (both physical and virtual) on the same performance stage. As such,
I argue that the notion of art in Technodrama is complicit with the politics of technoculture (i.e., the
problems surrounding the culture of technological dependence in almost all facets of modern society), such
that each technological device presented in a Technodrama play is capable of communicatingexclusive
of the narrative contentboth artistic and cultural meanings. Drawing upon the concept of technoculture
and such analytical approaches as aesthetic, literary and cultural theories, this paper explores the aesthetic
potential and the cultural implications of integrating technology into dramatic theatre by examining the use
of digitally rendered virtual and augmented reality technologies in recent Technodrama productions such
as Everyman: The Ultimate Commodity by Singapores Interaction and Entertainment Research Centre
(IERC) as well as Susan Broadhursts The Jeremiah Project (Blue Bloodshot Flowers).
Once the technological differentiation of optics, acoustics and writing exploded the
Gutenberg monopoly around 1880, the fabrication of so-called Man became possible.
His essence escapes into apparatuses [...] So-called Man is split up into physiology
and information technology.
Friedrich A. Kittler, Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, 1999, p.16.
http://tcjournal.org/drupal/print/vol1/fernandez
Page 1 of 19
10/29/13 1:45 PM
The late-Twentieth century witnessed the emergence of Technodrama, a new theatrical form that
fuses elements of digital media with playacting and dramatic narrative. In contrast to earlier
attempts at integrating technology into drama (such as Richard Wagners and Bertolt Brechts
incorporation of various mixed media technologies1 into their theatrical works), the
Technodramatic stage is a liminal space in which the question of identity is made complicated by
the interaction between live actors and a myriad of sophisticated technological devices (both
physical and virtual ones) on the same performance stage. In light of this juxtaposition between
advanced digital technologies and so-called live bodies, I argue that the notion of art in
Technodrama is complicit with the politics of technoculture (i.e., the problems surrounding the
prevalent culture of technological dependence in almost all facets of modern society), such that
each technological device presented in a Technodrama play is capable of communicating
exclusive of the narrative contentboth artistic and cultural meanings. What this means is that
the relationship between theatre and technoculture creates in Technodrama a technocultural
aesthetic which further alienates the audience by forcing them to deliberate on the constructivism
as well as the artistic and cultural implications of these digitally-enhanced mixed media plays
produced in the age of digital anxiety. In turn, the performance space in Technodrama becomes
a site of constant tension generated by the juxtaposition of physical bodies and virtual elements
on the same stage.
This tension between the physical and the virtual, I would argue, is vital for the development of
Technodrama. As British dramatist and scholar Susan Broadhurst suggests in a 2004 essay for
The Drama Review, it is within the tension-filled spaces which result from the interface of body
and technology on the same stage that opportunities arise for new experimental forms and
practices in contemporary theatre (48). Drawing upon the concept of technoculture and such
analytical approaches as aesthetic, performance, and cultural theories, this essay explores the
aesthetic potential and the cultural implications of integrating digital technology into dramatic
theatre by examining the use of virtual and augmented reality technologies in recent
Technodrama productions such as theatre scholar Susan Broadhursts The Jeremiah Project
(Blue Bloodshot Flowers) and NTU-IERCs2Everyman: The Ultimate Commodity, a theatrical
adaptation based on Singaporean writer Gopal Barathams short story Ultimate Commodity).
Over the past decade, the plurality of elements on the contemporary performance stage had
generated a desire among dramatists to experiment with the combination of theatre performance
and other art and media forms (for example, the use of augmented reality technology to create
virtual face masks in Everyman: The Ultimate Commodity). The extensive use of digital media
and computer technologies that include mixed reality presentations has morphologically altered
the landscape of the performance stage, which had for over two and a half millennia, only been
able to incorporate traditional mechanized and analogue technologies that simply serve to
complement the plays thematic concerns. In fact, mixed media performances have become so
prominent that the numerous ways in which live performance now endeavors to replicate
television, video and film is indicative of theatres remediation of new media technologies, further
legitimating its position within the increasingly mediatized field of cultural production in the
twenty-first century (Auslander 24). A recent example of such remediation of new media
technologies in the theatre is Robert Lepages integration of live and virtual realities through the
use of 3-D projections in the Metropolitans production of Siegfried. Even though Lepage is wellknown for his mixed media approach towards the operatic stage, his employment of motioncapture cameras and high-resolution projectors to create a three-dimensional world in which the
Page 2 of 19
10/29/13 1:45 PM
singers interact with the 3-D images projected on a ring of tilted screens surrounding the
performance space is undoubtedly an artistic innovation. However, it is worth noting that the
production of mixed media performances is not confined only to the developed West.
Take for example Huzir Sulaimans 2007 production of Cogito at the Singapore Arts Festival. The
play features the projection of a human head on a specially-designed wire mesh which renders a
three-dimensional illusion of the image. As the dramatic action unfolds, the head interacts with
the actors in real-time and plays the role of a commentator that criticizes the goings-on of the
performance. Interestingly, just as Asia discovers the aesthetic potential of integrating live and
virtual realities in the theatre, Broadway is also witnessing a surge in the number of mixed media
productions. Sam Buntrocks 2008 revival of Sunday in the Park with George and Jorge
Cousineaus 2011 production of the same musical with the Philadelphia-based Arden Theatre
are just two examples. In Buntrocks production of Sunday, 3-D animation is used to fashion a
live multimedia conceptual painting alongside dramatic playacting, while in Cousineaus version,
animated copies of the lead character, Georges Seurat, are projected by way of live video
technology on vertical screens positioned throughout the stage. Indeed, such innovative uses of
digital technology in the theatre do attest to Technodramas potential in augmenting its own
aesthetic qualities through the interface between live performance and the computer-generated
virtual environment. But then again, the emergence of Technodrama in the late-Twentieth
century is by no means a chance occurrence, as its evolution is built upon earlier attempts at
integrating technology into dramatic performance. Given that Richard Wagner and Bertolt Brecht
were already incorporating technology into their own productions before the late-Twentieth
century, I hold that an exploration of these early experiments with technological drama would
allow us to better appreciate the unique aesthetic qualities of Technodrama.
Wagner and Brecht: Early Experiments with Technological Drama
Although Technodrama is very much a recent theatrical movement, it is still plausible to assume
that many of its morphological traits (e.g., the use of augmented reality technology) might have
been influenced by earlier experiments with the creation of technological drama, in particular,
Richard Wagners and Bertolt Brechts incorporation of mixed media technologies into their own
productions. However, in contrast to the mechanical technology employed by Wagner and Brecht
in their works, wherein the distinction between the physical reality of the actors and the material
artificiality of the technological devices is obvious, I would argue that the use of digital technology
in Technodrama creates a liminal performance space in which the physical presence of the
actors on the stage and the virtuality of the digital devices used in the production exist in constant
tension with one another. Furthermore, given the ability of digital devices to accurately reproduce
the human body in the virtual realm (be it entirely or in its constituent parts), it would appear that
the demarcation between the real and the virtual in Technodrama is increasingly porous. As
such, it is imperative that I should explore the ways in which the stages in Wagners and Brechts
early experiments with technological drama were not liminal spaces.
Living in the age of the Industrial Revolution might have inspired Wagner to harness the potential
of technology in creating Gesamtkunstwerke (Total Artwork). Gesamtkunstwerke was an intermedia performance where a combination of scenic painting, lighting effects, and acoustical
design, served to create a believable virtual world on the stage. In fact, Wagner himself had
argued that the true and complete artwork consists of the reciprocal agreement and cooperation of all the branches and mediums of art (5). What this means is that every theatrical
Page 3 of 19
10/29/13 1:45 PM
device in a Wagnerian opera, be it the scenery or the actors gestures, is in support of the
overarching theme of the drama. This structural concept is emblematic of Wagners emphasis on
harmony in the creation of Gesamtkunstwerke (Total Artwork), whereby, as Patrick Carnegy
explains, [a]ll the constituent elements in a play carried equal weight and had to be held in
balance (118). In this sense, Wagners employment of mechanical technology serves as a
contrived solution that overcomes the physical constraints of a performance stage.
For example in Parsifal, Wagner made the actors pretend to walk while the scenery, on three
huge canvas rolls, moved behind them (Carnegy 112). Propelled by electric motors, the canvas
rolls moved continuously from left to right until the painting of the temple was eventually revealed
on the last canvas located at the back of the stage. Such a configuration of the stage set allowed
the scenery to change rapidly as the actors pretended to walk through the artificial forest.
However, while technology was able to fulfill Wagners desire to construct a stage world that
was rooted in myth rather than history, he could not find the appropriate visual language to do
so, as the dream-like, illusory world contained symbols that represented aspects of reality from
the historical past (Carnegy 131). In this way, the scenery rendered in Wagners opera becomes
a vortex that sucks the audience into the dreamscape. Perhaps it is this ability of the Wagnerian
stage to completely immerse the audience into the virtual world of the opera that sets it apart
from the liminality of the Technodramatic stage, wherein the tension between the real and the
virtual is reinforced by the ontological ambiguity that pervades the interface between the physical
reality of the actors and the virtuality of the digital devices on the same stage. As such, it might
be tempting to assume that Technodrama has more in common with the constructivism of Bertolt
Brechts drama than it does with the dream-like quality of Wagners opera.
Brecht made full use of the mechanical technology of the early-Twentieth century (e.g.,
photographic and filmic projections) in most of his productions. In describing his method as the
Verfremdungseffekt, or 'distancing effect'3 Brecht believed that the use of technological devices
in performance would prevent the audience from emotionally identifying with the action in the
play (as it was the case in dramatic realism). For this reason, Brecht, unlike Wagner, did not seek
to immerse his audience into a theatrically rendered virtual world. Instead, by harnessing the
power of mechanical technology, he was able to distance them from the dramatic action on the
stage, such that they may be compelled to deliberate on the pertinent issues raised in his plays.
For instance in Galileo, Brecht captured the cinematic qualities of vivid visual images and its
combination of fluidity and abruptness in a theatrical context (Willett 122). The stage designer,
Caspar Neher, supplemented the performance with such mixed media tools as the projections of
maps, documents and works of art of the Renaissance, thereby reinforcing the artificiality of the
drama (Esslin 128). Nevertheless, while this Brechtian play may be capable of distancing the
audience from the action on the stage by self-consciously exposing the artificiality of the
performance, it is not difficult to distinguish between the physical reality of the actors and the
material artificiality of the technological devices employed in the drama. As such, the Brechtian
stage cannot be considered a liminal performance space, as there is a clear distinction between
the real (human) and the artificial (technological) elements presented in the play, whereas the
interface between live actors and digital technology in Technodrama does not provide the
audience with the ability to easily distinguish between the real and the virtual. Therefore, as
opposed to the non-liminal stages in Wagners and Brechts early experiments with technological
drama, the Technodramatic stage is, I would argue, a liminal space in which the reality of the
Page 4 of 19
10/29/13 1:45 PM
actors and the virtuality of the digital devices exist in constant tension with one another and this
tension is especially pertinent to the state of the human condition in this age of digital anxiety.
Living in the Age of Digital Anxiety
While it might be tempting to study Technodrama on its own terms without considering the
context within which it is produced, the very fact that drama is itself a mode of cultural production
in contemporary society clearly suggests that it does not and cannot exist in a vacuum. In this
regard, we have to take into account the ways in which the performance of Technodrama is
influenced by the socio-cultural contexts from which these plays emerge. As the world continues
to evolve into a network of interconnected places due to rapid globalization, any form of
knowledge (technological knowledge included) produced in one locality can easily be transferred
to another with the help of advanced communication technologies such as the internet. In fact,
collaborations between dramatists from different parts of the world have in recent years become
a common practice in theatre production; for example, the production team for the Singaporebased Interaction and Entertainment Research Centers (NTU-IERC) 2007 Technodrama play,
Everyman: The Ultimate Commodity, comprises of dramatists from the United States, Singapore,
Malaysia, Vietnam and Spain.
The introduction of digital and high-speed communication technologies into our lives has made
us conscious of our position within global space, and for this reason, it is not surprising that we
might begin to cast doubts on our ontological status by questioning our own existence.
Furthermore, while most Marxist scholars maintain that technological advancement is inextricably
tied to capital accumulation, I am inclined to take this notion further by looking beyond the
criticism of economic imperatives and at the cultural effects of using technology. In his essay
Time-space Compression and the Postmodern Condition, David Harvey suggests that timespace compression in the postmodern world radically redefines our perception of time and
space, because technological advancements such as the creation of the internet allows for
multiple temporalities to exist at the same time over space. In other words, people from different
parts of the world can share common experiences and immerse themselves in multiple
consciousnesses at the same time (albeit virtually) on such high-speed digital communicational
platforms as Facebook, Tweeter and Skype.4
According to Harvey, the postmodern condition of such innovations would so undermine the
traditional linear correlation between time and space that what we project to be the future can be
discounted into the present in the same way that [p]ast experience gets compressed into some
overwhelming present, so that what we are left with is an ephemeral montage of images which
is perpetually stuck in the present moment (291). At the same time, technology has become a
part of the commodification process, whereby the acceleration in the turnover time of production
emphasizes the values and virtues of instantaneity and of disposability, so much so that the
commodification of images of the most ephemeral sortsuch as those in film and television as
well as those on the internet would serve to sustain the accumulative mechanism of capitalism
(Harvey 288). It is this ephemerality of information, culture, technological innovations and even
our existence that alienates us from any central core of knowledge, such that we become
suspicious of our own identity as well as the integrity of our ontological status. As a result of this
phenomenon, we begin to live in perpetual doubt and in constant anticipation of the unknown
(such as the fear that technology might one day replace us). In turn, the constant redevelopment
and redeployment of technology at increasingly rapid rates could only serve to reinforce the
Page 5 of 19
10/29/13 1:45 PM
asymptotic nature of representation in our postmodern world, as any technological device that is
considered new one day might become pass or obsolete the next.
The notion of digital anxiety provides the ideal cultural environment for the creation and
development of Technodrama as a new and evolving theatrical paradigm in the postmodern era,
whereby the idea of culture has become, as Fredric Jameson asserts, a product in its own
right, especially since the marketplace is fully as much a commodity as any of the items it
includes within itself (Postmodernism 1991, x). Jameson explains that while modernism was
somewhat critical of the commodity as an organizing principle in our quotidian lives,
postmodernism is in essence the consumption of sheer commodification as a process (x). In
other words, the postmodern condition is governed by a process of producing and consuming
commodities at such a rapid rate that a culture of commodity gratification has come to define
contemporary social life, thereby contributing to the emergence of a seemingly endless appetite
for new goods. In the case of technological products, the ephemeral nature of this culture of
commodity gratification is reflected in our constant desire for newer and more sophisticated
devices, even if we do not know what we actually need them for. As such, it would appear that
our postmodern understanding of technology as an ephemeral and a disposable commodity
stands in contrast to the modernist faith in technological innovation as a means by which to
improve our lives. As Alan Sikes explains, in the modern era, [c]hampions of technology argued
that advances in industry, transport, and communication would supply new solutions to the most
intractable difficulties in the world (149). However, in light of the tendency of most high-tech
corporations to market their technological products as commodities of pleasure, Sikes concedes
that despite his longing for technology to change the world, his Postmodern perspective
compels him to view such revolutionary promises with suspicion (149).
Sikes suspicion of the world-changing potential of technology in the postmodern era might
indeed be symptomatic of the sense of digital anxiety which permeates almost every facet of
contemporary society ranging from our anxiety about the arrival of virtual reality technology, to
our desire for automated robots that look, talk and behave exactly like real human beings. As our
postmodern lives become increasingly dependent on the ephemeral pleasure of using
technological devices that reproduce animated copies of our bodies or body parts in the virtual
realm, this sense of digital anxiety is quickly transformed into a deeper sense of ontological
anxiety about our existence vis--vis our perception of our own identity in a highly mediatized
world. Such an idea is most significant in a theatrical context. By using sophisticated
technological devices as part of its theatricality, the performance of Technodrama within the
boundaries of the stage is able to reflect and even reinforce the more deeply ontological
anxieties that results from the rapid penetration of digital technology into our lives. In the same
way that the sense of digital anxiety in contemporary society might alienate us from any central
core of knowledge, the employment of digital technology in Technodrama could potentially
alienate us from the materiality of the human condition, especially when it comes to the
fragmentation of human identity as well as the ontological uncertainty over our existence and
sense of Being as shown in the use of augmented reality technology in Everyman: The Ultimate
Commodity and the integration of artificial intelligence into The Jeremiah Project (Blue Bloodshot
Flowers).
Towards a Technocultural Aesthetic
>Perhaps it is the relative youth of technoculture as a concept that provides the impetus for
Page 6 of 19
10/29/13 1:45 PM
students and scholars of the humanities to further explore the potential applications of this
theoretical model to different modes of cultural expression in contemporary society. While
proponents of technoculture have focused primarily on conceptualizing the positive and negative
effects posed by the penetration of advanced media technologies into every facet of
contemporary social life, this approach has led most cultural theorists as well as literary and
theatre scholars to lapse into a discourse of technological determinism (i.e., a critical perspective
that only emphasizes the benefits and dangers of using technology) and in doing so, little or even
no attention is being paid to the complex aesthetic and cultural implications which pertain to the
employment of digital technology in dramatic theatre. In this sense, anyone who wishes to study
Technodrama as both an artistic movement and a cultural phenomenon has to recognize that
cultural technologies, warn Constance Penley and Andrew Ross, are far from neutral, and that
they are the result of social processes and power relations (xii). On the one hand, dramatic
theatre, like any art form, is a mode of communication. On the other hand, technology is capable
of becoming a double-edged sword that delivers both good and evil consequences. As such,
Technodrama is intrinsically enmeshed in the complex politics of technoculture, whereby the
disempowering habit of demonizing technology as a satanic mill of domination is pitched
against the postmodernist celebrations of the technological sublime (Penley & Ross xii).
In light of the deterministic technocultural politics which problematize the incorporation of mixed
media technologies in Technodrama, it has become even more challenging to adopt a more
nuanced approach towards the examination of the aesthetic and cultural effects of integrating
technology into dramatic performance, one that does not brutally condemn or wholly favor the
use of technology within a theatrical context. However, while it may not be easy to adopt a
balanced viewpoint when criticizing Technodrama, we ought to remember that this evolving
theatrical paradigm is not simply a compilation or collage of various media and artistic forms, but
rather, its inclination towards experimentation connotes the dissolution of a boundary dividing
traditionally disparate disciplines, thereby embracing a spirit of multiplicity in dramatic
performance (Shepherd & Wallis 137). Theatre in all its manifestations has always been a social
spectacle which can neither exclude humans nor remove articles associated with social life from
the stage. The spectacle, writes Marxist theorist Guy Debord, is a social relationship between
people that is mediated by images, whereby the actors on the stage communicate with the
audience by means of action and speech, while the visual and audio elements of a performance
communicate their own aesthetic and cultural meanings with or without regard to the dramatic
content of the play (4). In this sense, the extensive use of mixed media technologies in
Technodrama would provide the ideal platform on which critiques of what Stephen Watt calls a
commodity culture driven by the media and the image can be expressed (39).
Technoculture, as Penley and Ross conceive it, is located as much in the work of everyday
fantasies and actions as at the level of corporate or military decision making and the only way to
react against the dominance of technology in our lives is to encourage the capacity of ordinary
women and men to think of themselves as somehow in charge of even their most highly
mediated environments (xiii). As such, there is a need for audiences across the world to
deliberate on the pervasiveness of technoculture in contemporary social life and to consider
ways of reacting against the effects of the digital anxiety that permeates every facet of a
technologically-dependent society. However, amidst the increasing popularity of technoculture as
a critical lens by which to interpret such artistic forms as literature and drama, I find it necessary
to look beyond Penleys and Ross theoretical perspectives on this concept, in order to
Page 7 of 19
10/29/13 1:45 PM
understand its relationship with a more aesthetic perspective on the performance of

Technodrama. In Times of the Technoculture (1999), Kevin Robins and Frank Webster assert
that the technocultural project, as it is concerned with information and communications
technologies, now embraces a very broad range of issuesfrom economic policy to virtual
popular cultureand consequently mobilizes a variety of discourses in areas such as media,
cultural studies and, I would argue, most recently, in Technodrama, where technoculture and
aesthetics are deeply intertwined (3). The changing technoscape since the 1960s has been
reflected in the overall shift in perspective from the political-economic to the cultural, a
phenomenon which has resulted in the opening up of the agenda, from a concern with the
information society to an interest in the virtual life, thus marking a cultural transition from
epistemological doubt to ontological uncertainty (Robins & Webster 3). What this means is that
the questioning of knowledge (how we know what we know) has become pass, replaced by a
new kind of skepticism that has emerged in the age of digital anxiety, one that is suspicious of
the realness of our existence in the physical world.
In a postmodern environment where we are anxious to locate our position within global space
and to ascertain the veracity of our existence, the interplay of various social, political and cultural
forces compels us to constantly anticipate the arrival of new technologies and, in turn, to be
alienated by the unfamiliarity of their dominant presence in our lives, even though most of these
so-called new and innovative technological products are merely variations of the same basic
technical concept. As such, it is this desire for new things that forms the bedrock for the infinite
reproduction of reality as we know it (most notably in the form of objects, images, people,
environments etc.) by means of machinery. The representational power of machinery in the
modernist period of the early-twentieth century was manifested, as Fredric Jameson claims, in
the celebration of mechanical systems like the machine gun and the motor car as visible
emblems, sculptural nodes of energy which gives tangibility and figuration to the motive energies
of that earlier moment of modernization (36). As such, while the metaphorical presence of
technology (i.e., its symbolic power) produced in the era of modernization could articulate certain
cultural pointsmainly because the materiality of these devices inherently possessed the
capacity for tactile representationthis distinctively modernist ability, however, does not hold
true for the technology of the postmodern age. Instead, as Jameson points out, machinery in the
postmodern age is only capable of representing the process of reproduction which pervades
most postmodernist texts. In this sense, beyond the thematic concerns of the dramatic content,
the employment of technological devices in Technodrama participates in the process of
reproducing realities in the form of images and sounds, thereby affording us some glimpse into
a postmodern or technological sublime, whose power or authenticity is documented by the
success of such works in evoking a whole new postmodern space in emergence around us
(Jameson 37). Thus, despite the absence of technologys representative power in the
postmodern age, simply experiencing its presence in Technodrama could raise our awareness of
the technocultural landscape that has dominated much (if not all) of our postmodern world.
As technology continues to advance at a rapid pace in the new millennium, more sophisticated
systems will be created and it is inevitable that these inventions will eventually dominate
everyday life in contemporary society. Perhaps no other technological innovation in recent times
can match the computer in terms of its pervasiveness in our postmodern world and its ability to
shape the ways in which we organize our lives; this latter point becomes even more prominent as
more people begin to use the computer for a multitude of activities ranging from writing to the
Page 8 of 19
10/29/13 1:45 PM
creation of art. With the arrival of digital technology, questions regarding the relationship between
reality and virtuality have emerged. Furthermore, the notion of art in new dramatic movements
such as Technodrama has also been refashioned by the increasing use in contemporary theatre
production of machines with high computing power. Fredric Jameson, in his study of the role that
technology plays in the artworks of the postmodern age, argues that the demands which
computer technology makes on our capacity for aesthetic representation allow for the creation
of non-physical entities that challenge the traditional idea of tangible presence, a quality which is
characteristic of the older machineries that were produced in the era of modernization (37).
However, this new capacity for aesthetic representation is further complicated by the advent of
virtual reality, which calls into question any preconceived notion of what constitutes reality.
Because virtual reality has the potential to distort the boundary that divides the real and the
virtual (i.e., the technology could potentially cast doubt on our very own existence), it becomes
even harder to formulate an appropriate aesthetic response to works of art that employ this
highly advanced but ontologically problematic technology.
While some cultural critics may point out that the apparent ubiquity of virtual reality technology in
our postmodern world (as reflected in some Asian advertisements that employ augmented reality
technology)5 could potentially result in the impossibility of differentiating between reality and
virtuality, such a postulation, I would argue, is driven by the often unsubstantiated fear that virtual
reality might one day supplant the physical reality of the world as we know it. As such, the only
way to dispel such assumptions about the dangers of integrating virtual reality into our physical
world (including theatre production) is to examine how virtual reality functions. Slavoj iek, in his
filmed lecture The Reality of the Virtual (2004), sees virtual reality as a miserable idea which, in
his opinion, is essentially a way to reproduce in an artificial digital medium our experience of
reality (48). What this means is that virtual reality creates by way of digital media technologies, a
double that aims to duplicate aspects of what we conceive to be (physical) reality. In other
words, virtual reality is very much a technologically reproduced image of reality. Because this
image is a product of the real world (as it is produced by human programmers), it is possible to
suggest that virtual reality exists insideand not outsideof reality as we know it by creating a
new virtual space.
As I mentioned earlier, some cultural critics assume that this new virtual space exists in a realm
that is completely separate from reality, that it is the ontological antithesis of the real world. In
their analysis of the effects that virtual reality imposes on the perception of space in the
postmodern age, Robins and Webster assert that virtual culture is a culture of disengagement
from the real world and its human condition of embodied (enworlded) experience and meaning
(244). The argument above is based on the idea that the virtual world is distinct from the socalled real world, such that our contact with the technological might serve to immerse us in an
alternative space that will entirely fulfill the desire for effective disconnection and refuge from the
world, a space that compels us to go on ignoring the erosion of the worlds reality (Robins &
Webster 246-47). However, I would contend that Robins and Websters distinction between
reality and the virtual inadvertently obscures the fact that virtual elements are very much a part of
reality, in so far as it remains a product of human intelligence and labor (i.e., it is made by
humans using materials from the real world). Moreover, even if one were to completely immerse
himself, or herself, in the digital world of virtual reality, it is currently impossible to sustain this
immersion without the help of tactile elements such as a constant supply of energy which at
present can only be produced in the real world. Likewise, in the context of Technodrama, the
Page 9 of 19
10/29/13 1:45 PM
validity of any theoretical model that divides the real and the virtual into two distinct entities is
undermined by the interaction on the same stage between virtual characters and real characters
played by live actors in The Jeremiah Project (Blue Bloodshot Flowers) and Everyman: The
Ultimate Commodity. Therefore, in the subsequent sections of this paper, I will be examining in
greater detail the implications of integrating live and virtual realities in these two Technodrama
plays.
Mixed Realities in Technodrama
Susan Broadhursts The Jeremiah Project (Blue Bloodshot Flowers) was an international
collaboration at Brunel University between British dramatists and computer engineers and Elodie
Berland, a French actress. The project, which investigates the interface between physicality and
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology in contemporary theatre performance, consists of a number
of smaller projects that focus on the theatrical relationship between physical and virtual bodies in
different forms of performance, ranging from dance theatre to dramatic theatre. For our
discussion, I will be looking at the 2001 staging of Blue Bloodshot Flowers, a Technodrama piece
which explores the tensions that exist when technology interacts with the body on the stage. The
dramatic narrative of the play is based on a short text of the same name written by Philip Stainer
in which the narrator recounts a love affair with an unknown other long since gone. While the
aesthetics of the story resides in the narrators distorted memory of and unrequited longing for
lost love, it does not provide any information on the identity and gender of the lovers and it is not
clear if the narrator is even alive. Nevertheless, Broadhurst realized the aesthetic potential that
the narrative brought to her investigation of the interface between physical and virtual bodies in a
mediatized environment, as no body, she argues, be they physical or virtual, can escape
(re)presentation altogether (48). For this reason, two actorsone real and the other virtual
were introduced to the dramatization of this love story, in order to examine the ways in which
virtual bodies can be represented in relation to their physical counterparts. With this set-up, the
real actor performs within the constraints of the stage, while the virtual actor, whose computergenerated animated head is the only body part that is seen by the audience, exists as an
interactive image that is projected onto a black cyclorama located at the upstage area. The real
actor, played by the French actress Elodie Berland, does not speak with her own voice, but
instead, a French voiceover serves as a memory device which recounts the lost love in her life.
For the virtual actor, visual surveillance and virtual reality technologies were employed to create
Jeremiah, an avatar that possesses human traits such as the ability to see and to express his
emotions (i.e., he can feel happy, sad or even angry during the course of the Technodrama
performance). The decision to cast a female actor and a male virtual avatar is intentional, as
Broadhurst wanted to experiment with the audiences interpretation of the relationship between
Berland and Jeremiah, whose virtual presence on the stage is conveniently assumed to be the
image of the departed lover in the dramatic narrative. Subsequently, Berlands relationship with
Jeremiah becomes even more ambiguous, as the interaction between these two actors conjures
a sense of ontological uncertainty which challenges the neat categorization between the real
and the virtual. In Blue Bloodshot Flowers, the assumption that physical presence is real, while
virtual presence is not, is further complicated by the fact that Jeremiah is not a passive but a
reactive avatar, one whose emotions are shaped by the behavior of bodies and objects within his
visual field on the stage. For example, high rates of movement by Berland make him happy,
whereas when she leaves the stage, the lack of company makes him sad and in both instances,
he expresses his emotions by way of his facial expression. What this means is that Jeremiahs
Page 10 of 19
10/29/13 1:45 PM
behavior is directly influenced by the different types and varying intensities of the stimuli that
exist on the stage. In fact, he possesses such a high level of artificial intelligence that he can
express multiple emotions simultaneously, as he reacts to visual stimulus. Consequently, this
non-prescriptive intelligence allows Berland, the live actor, to participate in a direct and real-time
interaction with the avatar Jeremiah.
For every performance of Blue Bloodshot Flowers, Jeremiah is original in the sense that his
behavior is specific to the types of stimuli produced by Berlands movements on the stage, which
range from the rapid tossing of flowers which excites the virtual actor to the exceedingly slowpaced hand gestures that frustrate him. This computer-generated avatar is not simply
reproduced as a kind of pre-recorded scripted animation that exists in exactly the same form
every time it appears onstage. Instead, he behaves like an improvisation artist who changes his
performance style in relation to the situation in which he is immersed, as he interacts with
another body that might cajole, abandon or provoke this virtual being, thereby causing it to react
accordingly to these stimuli by expressing feelings of happiness, sadness or anger. Even though
the facial emotions that Jeremiah expresses in reaction to certain stimuli were electronically
programmed by a computer, his ability to demonstrate random behavior adds a tinge of
unpredictability to his character, a trait which allows this virtual actor to inch even closer towards
becoming a real-life being. Because artificial intelligence is capable of producing a virtual body
like Jeremiah who can express human emotions in an arbitrary fashion that defies the need to
adhere to a fixed script whenever he performs on stage with the live actor Berland, Blue
Bloodshot Flowers is therefore able to successfully subvert Jamesons claim that machines in the
postmodern age only exist as machines of reproduction.
Far from simply being a tool for reproduction, the plays use of advanced digital technology to
create a life-like virtual being whose unpredictability fragments the formal coherence of the
drama is a distinct aesthetic trait in itself. By inviting the audience onstage to join the live actor
Berland in her interactions with Jeremiah in the second half of the play, Broadhurst brings a new
aesthetic experience to contemporary Technodrama, as this participatory mode of artistic
appreciation requires the beholder to physically engage the work of artwhich in this case is the
avatar Jeremiahin a two-way communication. As they wave their hands and walk about on the
stage, members of the audience are able to instigate Jeremiah to respond specifically to their
gestures and movements. This interaction between physical and virtual bodies in a single
performance space, Broadhurst argues, frustrates the audiences expectations of any simple
interpretation of the play which is complicit with the dominant means of digital representation in
contemporary theatre such as the use of virtual reality and visual surveillance technologies (53).
This metaphysical complicityto borrow a term from Derridais necessary for any critique of
the dominance of technology in our postmodern world to take place, for it would be difficult for us
to criticize a certain cultural phenomenon if we were to ignore the machineries that produce the
phenomenon in the first place (281). For this reason, Technodramas critique of contemporary
technoculture necessarily involves the use of advanced digital technologies such as artificial
intelligence as part of the dramatic performance, in order to raise the audiences awareness of
the politics of technological dependence in contemporary society, a problem that is only
sustained by the narratives prevalent sense of digital anxiety about the relationship between
humans and advanced technologies.
Consequently, the integration of artificial intelligence into Blue Bloodshot Flowers would serve to
Page 11 of 19
10/29/13 1:45 PM
alienate the audience (in very much the same way as Brechts Verfremdungseffekt) by allowing
them close contact with a virtual being, thereby arousing their awareness of the dominance in
contemporary society of advanced digital technologies, in particular, the commodified
technological devices produced by multi-national corporations for mass consumption. In fact, I
would argue that the audience, through their physical interaction with Jeremiah, is better able to
reflect on the ways in which technology has infiltrated every facet of contemporary life to the
extent that it becomes increasingly challenging to distinguish between the real and the virtual.
Indeed, Blue Bloodshot Flowers is a self-reflexive dramatic performance in which we as humans
re-perform ourselves in a highly mediatized theatrical environment, in order to understand
through cultures eyes, what our performance means in relation to the technocultural landscape
that is external to the theatre (Liu & Davenport 238). As such, not only does the employment of
artificial intelligence redefine the conventional reproductive status of technology in contemporary
society (as is seen in Jeremiahs ability to adapt to different situations in a theatrical context), it is
also indicative of how todays advanced technologies behave more like humans than mechanical
constructs, a paradoxical situation which results in the blurring of the boundary between the real
and the virtual.
A Conflict between the Virtual and the Real
The potential for such conflation of the real and the virtual is pushed even further in NTU-IERCs
Everyman, wherein questions about the reality of the virtual and the virtuality of the real (i.e.,
questions that reflect the digital anxiety about existence in a highly mediatized world) become
even more apparent as augmented reality is integrated into a theatrical environment that consists
of live actors, such that any assumption on the part of the audience of the neat distinction
between humans and virtual bodies becomes problematic. Augmented Reality (AR) in the theatre
is an outgrowth of table-top augmented reality art installation projects which evolved in the early
90s (Azuma 4). In the table-top AR configuration a participant wearing a mobile virtual-reality
headset could train the device on a black and white marker and witness a virtual object
superimposed in the place of that marker. As Ronald Azuma explains it, the more familiar Virtual
Reality Technology - which creates a virtual world that completely replaces the real world
outsideis different from Augmented Reality in that AR supplements, rather than supplants,
the real world (1). To this end, a mixed media performance based on Augmented Reality
Technology would need to combine the real and the virtual environment[s], making them
interactive in real time and rendering the virtual image of the live performance to be registered
in three dimensions (Azuma 356). NTU-IERCs Technodrama project, Everyman, attempts to
accomplish this, beginning with the idea that if the interaction between the marker and the human
participant were to be inverted, so that the marker became mobile and the participant static, it
would be possible to employ Augmented Reality Technology in the theatre, where the audience
becomes the static participant, while the actors set the mobile marker into motion (according to
this scenario, in the place of a virtual reality headset the audience would see the virtual-object
superimposition via an onstage screen). Such innovations when employed in the theatre should
allow for the adoption of two ontologically distinct if sometimes overlapping spaces on the stage
one real and the other virtual.
The performance of Everyman at the 2007 Toronto Fringe Festival involved the incorporation of
computer-generated imagery (CGI) into traditional theatrical environments and, conversely, the
inclusion of traditional theatrical scenes into a virtual environment. As the subject of their
Page 12 of 19
10/29/13 1:45 PM
Technodrama play, NTU-IERC chose Singaporean writer Gopal Barathams short story Ultimate
Commodity, which it recognized as the ideal vehicle with which to investigate augmented
realitys theatrical possibilities. Barathams short story imagines a future in which a Singaporean
scientist has created a formula (Substance X) which causes all those who ingest it to undergo a
physical transformation so as to become universal organ donors (i.e., so that their organs could
be harvested and transplanted into any other person's body without fear of rejection). In this
imagined future, the Singaporean Government has taken the liberty of adding Substance x to the
city's drinking water, with the objective that Singapore might finally fulfill its destiny as a country
where the government's claim that Our people have become our only resource [...] has become
literally true (Jernigan 36). However, a significant side-effect of the formula is that it also causes
the various distinguishing characteristics of Singaporeans to disappear, so that every person
becomes morphologically identical to every other person. Against this backdrop, Everyman
focused on a small part of the larger story; on the identity crisis which occurs when a father
(Binny) confuses his daughter (Leeni) with his wife (Ri).
Throughout the Technodrama play, augmented reality proved itself to be uniquely suited to the
telling of this story due to the fact that Binny could be played by a live actor even as the other
two characters features could be augmented by virtual face masks superimposed into the
scene with Binny by means of screen projection. What NTU-IERC had created, in essence, were
two stages: a virtual stage and a real stage. In the real stage the audience would always and
only see the real actors, albeit outfitted with the necessary devices used to deliver the necessary
projections to the virtual stage. In the virtual stage (which was situated side by side with the real
stage - so that each shared half the stage) the audience would see these same actors from the
real stage projected onto a large screen, albeit augmented with their respective virtual masks.
This set-up would allow real actors the ability to interact with the augmented ones in the virtual
stage. Moreover, this conceptualization also allows for the possibility that while a scene can
begin with Binny talking to two characters (his wife and his daughter) it can end with him talking
to a single character (a morphed version of his mother and daughter) or, even, with him talking to
himself, as his features morph with those of the remaining characters. In relation to the dramatic
content of Everyman, this innovative conception not only helps the audience to visualize the
elimination of distinguishing characteristics in real-time, but also serves to reinforce the more
general theme of the worki.e., that perhaps contemporary Singaporeans have already begun
the process of losing their various distinguishing characteristics. Furthermore, the simultaneous
staging of real characters with simulated characters also resonates with the theme of identity
conflation, itself a prevalent theme in Baratham's original text, even though this interplay of real
and virtual bodies in a single theatrical space raises questions about the assumed distinction
between the real and the virtual (but more on this later, as I will look first at the issue of identity
conflation brought about by the use of augmented reality in theatre).
The potential of AR to express the nightmare which might arise from identity conflation became
most notable in the scene that sees the lead character, Binny, mistake his wife Ri for his
daughter, Leeni, because the two have become identical. The idea of cloned or confused
identities among the characters in the play was implemented by replacing the head of one actor
with that of another. As a result, the audience is able to simultaneously see both the masked
player on the virtual stage and the unmasked player on the live stage. Placing the virtual stage
and the real stage side by side serves to accentuate the meta-theatrical elements of Everyman,
as both the live action and the virtual performance reflected on the screen are explicitly
Page 13 of 19
10/29/13 1:45 PM
presented in real-time on a single stage, thereby providing the audience with a double take on
the artificiality of the dramatic action. The idea of splitting the stage into live and virtual
performance spaces not only makes it explicit to the audience that everything happening on
screen is happening in real-time, but it also serves an important thematic function in the actual
narrative, as the audiencein witnessing both stages simultaneouslyis allowed to better
identify with the very identity confusion which perplexes the characters themselves. For instance,
when Leeni very nearly seduces her own father, the audiences investment in this identity
confusion is compounded by the fact that it witnesses both scenes simultaneously (i.e., what
looks like the mother seducing the father from one perspective, is very clearly the daughter
seducing her own father from another). Consequently, while a more traditional masked
performance only allows audiences the ability to see the role-specific face mask, NTU-IERCs
Everyman simultaneously allows the audience the opportunity to pierce through the materiality of
the mask to the actual human face of the performer playing the character, such that the audience
encounters what I call the double vision of witnessing in real-time, the identity confusion
unfolding in the virtual space projected on the screen as well as in the live action.
As the live actors playing the characters Binny, Leeni and Ri in the real stage are pitched
against their virtual counterparts on the projection screen, it is tempting to presume that the
physical presence of the live actors renders them more real than the virtual presence of the
virtual characters whose faces can be morphed from one to another by way of augmented reality
technology. In contrast to the explicit artificiality of the avatar Jeremiah, a virtual being in
Broadhursts Blue Bloodshot Flowers that is constructed entirely by computer technology, the
creation of the augmented reality environment in Everyman involves a combination of computergenerated-imagery and real-time video recordings of the live actors, whereby the virtual images
in the form of virtual face masks are juxtaposed with the human images on the projection screen
that divides the real performance space from that of the virtual. As such, it is easy to conclude
that Jeremiah is obviously a virtual being, whereas the same cannot be that easily said of the
virtual manifestations of Binny, Leeni and Ri, as their existence on their projection screen is
marked by the symbiosis of a virtual face and a technologically reproduced human body. In this
sense, they are neither entirely virtual nor are they completely real. Thus, it would be unfair to
ascertain that just because the virtual characters can only appear in the virtual stage, they are
considered constructs and are therefore unreal, for it could be argued that the replication on the
projection screen of the images of the live actors who perform in the real stage might cause
them to lose their realness, assuming that such a thing even exists.
If the difference between the real and the virtual is only a matter of perception (on the part of the
audience), then perhaps a better understanding of the conflict between the virtuality of the real
and the reality of the virtual on the Technodramatic stage could be attained by turning to Slavoj
ieks reading of the last scene in Robert Heinleins 1942 science fiction novel, The Unpleasant
Profession of Jonathan Hoag. iek focuses on the part of the story where the protagonist Hoag
instructs the private investigator Randall and his wife Cynthia not to open the window of their car
when they drive home to New York. At first, the journey proceeds without mishap as the couple
follows the prohibition. However, things take a turn when they witness an accident in which a
child is run over by a car. Initially, they remain calm and continue to drive, but upon seeing a
patrol officer, they stop the car to inform him of the accident. As Cynthia lowers the side window
a little, they realize that there is no sunlight, no cops, no children and no sound outside the open
window, nothing except for a grey and formless mist which merges with the window and begins
Page 14 of 19
10/29/13 1:45 PM
to drift into the car. Randall forcibly cranks up the window and suddenly, the sunny scene
complete with the policeman, the sidewalk and the city is restored. Thus, by deciding to roll down
the window just a little and peering through the opening, he realizes that there is nothing, but
through the glass, the scene of city traffic and sunny streets remains perfectly intact.
What is crucial here is the line of demarcation which separates the outside of the car from the
inside and in this case, this line is materialized as the windowpane. The discord between inside
and outside is most apparent if we were to situate ourselves on the inside of a car. iek explains
that this basic phenomenological experience of disproportion occurs when we perceive the world
beyond the windowpane as another mode of reality, not immediately continuous with the reality
inside the car (15). As we sit comfortably in the car, the external world outside the car appears
to be fundamentally unreal, as if their reality has been suspended, put in parenthesis, such that
it seems as though the objects of the outside world exist only as a kind of cinematic reality
projected onto the screen of the windowpane (iek 15). In other words, the external reality is
fictional and if we were to join Randall and Cynthia in unwinding the windowpane and in so
doing, allow some of the outside world to flow into the inside of the car, the presumption that the
external is fictional, whereas the internal is real, would collapse, as the neat division between
reality and fiction is ruptured.
Essentially, what Heinleins science fiction and ieks analysis of it tell us is that the distinction
between the real and the virtual is artificial. The horror that Randall and Cynthia experience in
recognizing that there is no such thing as an inside or an outside world is in fact an artifice that
shapes the story into a work of art. Moreover, what is truly horrific in this last scene of the novel
is the way in which the virtual and the real have bled seamlessly into one another, a fusion
which has been theatrically (and corporeally) expressed in Everyman. Relating ieks point to
the audiences phenomenological experience of the barrier (i.e., the projection screen) which
separates the virtual stage and the real stage in the Technodrama play, let us imagine that the
real stage, together with the space that the audience occupies, constitutes the inside of the car,
while the virtual stage becomes the external world that lies beyond the barrier. Since the
projection screen is physically present on the stage, its materiality becomes too jarring for the
audience to ignore and in this sense, it is similar to the tightly shut windowpane of the car in
Heinleins story, whereby the outside world has been completely shut off. In this way, the virtual
characters and the virtual space in which they perform are considered fictional, so long as the
projection screen remains intact. However, once this barrier is removed to allow the virtual
characters and the virtual stage to spill into the so-called real stage, then the differentiation
between the virtual and the real becomes distorted in the same way that the assumed
separation between fiction and reality in ieks example of the car had been overturned. What
this means is that the real is perhaps no more different than the virtual, as the expression of the
reality of the virtual and the virtuality of the real in Everyman reflects the way in which the
politics of technoculture has permeated our postmodern world to the extent that humans can
become virtual characters in cyberspace, while virtual entities are able to exist as veneers that
can be attributed to the identities of human beings living in what we regard as reality.
Consequently, it is the foregrounding of this tension between the virtual and the real in the
performance of Technodrama that reinforces and sustains the liminality of the Technodramatic
stage.
Conclusion
Page 15 of 19
10/29/13 1:45 PM
Throughout this essay, we have looked at the ways in which the performance of Technodrama
has gradually developed into a technocultural aesthetic in the age of digital anxiety, a period
marked by the dominance of consumerism which perpetuates the ephemerality of knowledge,
culture, technological innovations and even our existence in space. As such, the pervasive sense
of digital anxiety in contemporary society becomes a structure of feeling that alienates us from
any knowledge system that serves to ascertain the veracity of our identity or the integrity of our
ontological status. As we have seen in the two Technodrama plays examined in this paper,
dramatic form is both mutable and fluid in the way that the virtual stage bleeds into the so-called
real stage. Through the interaction between physical and virtual bodies in a single performance
space, the technological devices that these plays employ are able to communicate to the
audience both aesthetic and cultural meanings, as these devices draw the audiences attention
to the technocultural politics surrounding the dominance of technology in contemporary society,
while simultaneously allowing them to appreciate the formal beauty of the interface between the
human and the technological. This dual-role that technology plays in enhancing the aesthetic
qualities of Technodrama and in inviting the audience to deliberate on the ramifications of
technological dependence is by no means an erasure of the merits that dramatic content brings
to this evolving theatrical form. Rather, the emotional relationships articulated by the content of
each of the two Technodrama plays provide the basis on which the idea of having live actors
interact with virtual actors can be materialized into dramatic action. Hence, while the unique
morphological traits of Technodrama may serve to undermine the conventional distinction
between reality and virtuality as separate entities, these same traits are also capable of
foregrounding the constructivism of this evolving theatrical art form, whereby the performance of
Technodrama, with its employment of different types of digital technology, is as much a
fabrication as the technological devices themselves.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Such technological devices include electric pulleys for the rotation of painted scenes in Wagners operas as well
as photographic and filmic projections in most of Brechts plays.
NTU-IERC refers to the Nanyang Technological University Interaction and Entertainment Research Centre, a
mixed-reality and digital media research facility located in Singapore.
According to Brecht, the distancing effect prevents the audience from losing itself passively and completely in the
character created by the actor, thus affording them the role of a consciously critical observer (91).
In March 2011, the emerging field of Digital Interactive Theatre was further enriched by the production of the
worlds first Skype Play entitled You Wouldnt Know Him, He Lives in Texas. You Wouldnt Know Her, She
Lives in London. However, a discussion on the cultural implications of this production is beyond the scope of this
paper.
Willis Wees article "5 Cool Augmented Reality Case Studies in Asia" takes an in-depth look at this recent cultural
phenomenon in Asia. The URL for this article is http://www.penn-olson.com/2011/04/20/augmented-reality-in-asia.
Works Cited
Page 16 of 19
10/29/13 1:45 PM
'
Auslander, Philip. Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture. New York: Routledge, 1999.
Print.
Azuma, Ronald T. A Survey of Augmented Reality. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual
Environments 6.4 (1997): 355385. Print.
_____. Overview of Augmented Reality. International Conference on Computer Graphics and
Interactive Techniques: ACM SIGGRAPH 2004 Course Notes No. 26. New York: ACM,
2004. Print.
Azuma, Ronald T. and Gary Bishop. Improving Static & Dynamic Registration in an Optical
Seethrough HMD. International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive
Techniques. New York: ACM, 1994. Print.
Baratham, Gopal. Ultimate Commodity. The City of Forgetting: The Collected Stories of Gopal
Baratham. Shah Alam, Malaysia: Times, 2001. Print.
Brecht, Bertolt. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. Ed. and Trans. John
Willett. New York: Hill and Wang, 1964. Print.
_____. Galileo. 1943. Trans. Charles Laughton. Ed. Eric Bentley. New York: Grove Press, 1994.
Print.
Broadhurst, Susan. The Jeremiah Project: Interaction, Reaction and Performance. The Drama
Review 48.4 (2004): 47-57. Print.
Carnegy, Patrick. Wagner and the Art of the Theatre. New Haven: Yale UP, 2006. Print.
Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle. 1967. Trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith.
Cambridge,MA: Zone & MIT Press, 1995. Print.
Derrida, Jacques. Writing and Diffrance. Trans. Alan Bass. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press, 1978. Print.
Esslin, Martin. Brecht: The Man and His Work. New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1961. Print.
Everyman: The Ultimate Commodity. Daniel K. Jernigan and Russell W. Pensyl. Nanyang
Technological UniversityInteraction and Entertainment Research Centre (NTU-IERC).
Esplanade Theatre Studio, Singapore. 9 September 2006 / Toronto Fringe Festival 2007,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 6-12 July 2007. Perf.
Harvey, David. Time-space Compression and the Postmodern Condition. The Condition of
Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell,
1990. Print.
Heinlein, Robert A. The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag. 1942. New York: Berkley,
1983. Print.
Page 17 of 19
10/29/13 1:45 PM
Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke
UP, 1991. Print.
The Jeremiah Project (Blue Bloodshot Flowers). Susan Broadhurst. Brunel University, London.
August 2001. Perf.
Jernigan, Daniel. Everyman: The Ultimate Commodity. Singapore: Nanyang UP, 2007. Print.
Jernigan, Daniel, Stephen Fernandez, Russell Pensyl and Lee Shang Ping. Digitally Augmented
Reality Characters in Theatre Performances. International Journal of Performance Arts
and Digital Media 5.1 (2009): 35-49. Print.
Kittler, Friedrich A. Gramophone, Film, Typewriter. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1999. Print.
Liu, Hugo and Glorianna Davenport. Self-reflexive Performance: Dancing with the Computed
Audience of Culture. International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media
1.3(2005): 237-247. Print.
Penley, Constance and Andrew Ross. Technoculture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1991. Print.
Robins, Kevin and Frank Webster. Times of the Technoculture. London: Routledge, 1999. Print.
Shepherd, Simon and Mick Wallis. Drama/Theatre/Performance. Oxford: Routledge, 2004. Print.
Sikes, Alan. Representation and Identity from Versailles to the Present: The Performing Subject.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Print.
Slavoj iek: The Reality of the Virtual. Dir. Ben Wright. Olive Films, 2004. DVD.
Stanier, Philip. Blue Bloodshot Flowers: Text for Performance. 2001. Body, Space, &
Technology 2.1 Brunel University. 27 Dec 2009. Web.
Wagner, Richard. Outlines of the Artwork of the Future. Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual
Reality. 1849. Ed. Randall Packer and Ken Jordan. New York: Norton, 2001. Print.
_____. Parsifal. 1882. Parsifal a Drama by Wagner. Ed. Oliver Huckel. Whitefish,MT: Kessinger,
2004. Print.
Watt, Stephen. Postmodern/Drama. Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan UP, 1998. Print.
Willett, James. The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht: A Study from Eight Aspects. 1959. London:
Methuen, 1977. Print.
iek, Slavoj. From Reality to the Real. Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan
through Popular Culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991. Print.
Biography: Stephen Fernandez works at the intersection of dramatic theatre, critical theory and digital
Page 18 of 19
10/29/13 1:45 PM
media. His research interests include technoculture, postmodernism, and the interface between technology
and performance. In fact, he is particularly concerned about the impact of digital technology (especially
virtual and augmented realities) on the quality of human existence in the Twenty-first century. Besides
pursuing such academic topics, Stephen is also an active theatre practitioner. Over the past few years, he
has directed several original plays in Singapore, some of which have been produced in support of
charitable causes such as the International Down Syndrome movement. Stephen is a graduate student at the
University of Waterloo.
2011 Stephen Fernandez, used by permission.
Technoculture Volume 1 (2011)
ISSN 1938-0526
Source URL: http://tcjournal.org/drupal/vol1/fernandez
Page 19 of 19

Fernandez - Performing Technodrama

Загружено:

Сведения о документе

Авторское право

Доступные форматы

Поделиться этим документом

Поделиться или встроить документ

Параметры публикации

Этот документ был вам полезен?

Это неприемлемый материал?

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

Fernandez - Performing Technodrama

Загружено:

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

Critical EssayPerforming Technodrama: Towards a Technocultural Aesthetic in the Age of Digital Anxiety

Published on Technoculture (http://tcjournal.org/drupal)

Critical EssayPerforming Technodrama:

understand its relationship with a more aesthetic perspective on the performance of

Вам также может понравиться