THEA 284
Global Digital Performance Fall 2020
Division I Difference, Power, and Equity
This is not the current course catalog

This course explores the ways in which digital technologies are shaping performance practices. We will consider theater, dance and performance art, as well as the use of social media in political movements and everyday life. We will begin by examining the long history of mediatization in performance. From painting, puppetry and photography to video, VR and Tik Tok, performers’ bodies have always been, in some sense, “mediated.” We will interrogate the affects and power relations at stake in questions of “liveness,” paying particular attention to how the representation of bodies is embroiled in longstanding imperialist projects of representing the “Other,” racialized and gendered modes of viewing, and global regimes of neoliberal surveillance. On the other hand, we will examine the role digital communication platforms play in political resistance. We will apply our growing understanding of the pitfalls and potential of digital technologies to examining the aesthetic strategies and political projects of artists and their audiences from various parts of the world. Throughout our work we will acknowledge how access to new technologies, as well as the meaning given to their use, vary between national, cultural, and class contexts. This includes keeping in mind the “digital divide” so that we can chip away at our common sense assumptions that the internet and digital art making are inherently democratic.