Shortlisted for the PQ Best Publication Award in Performance Design & Scenography 2023
This book uses digital media theory to explore contemporary understandings of expanded scenography as spatial practice. It surveys and analyses a selection of ground-breaking, experimental digital media performances that comprise a genealogy spanning the last 30 years, in order to show how the arrival of digital technologies has profoundly transformed performance practice. Performances are selected based on their ability to elicit the unique specificities of digital media in new and original ways, thereby exposing both the richness and shortcomings of digital culture.
O'Dwyer argues that contemporary scenography is largely propelled by and dependent on digital technologies and represents a rich, fertile domain, where unbridled creativity can explore new techniques and challenge the limits of knowledge. The 30-year genealogy includes works by Troika Ranch, Stelarc, Klaus Obermaier, Chunky Move, Onion Lab and Blast Theory. In addition to applying a broad scope of performance analysis and aesthetic theory, the work includes artists' interviews and opinions.
The volume opens important aesthetic, philosophical and socio-political themes in order to highlight the impact of digital technologies on scenographic practice and the blossoming of experimental interdisciplinarity. Ultimately, the book is an exploration of how evolutionary leaps in technology contribute to how humans think, act, make work, engage one another, and therefore construct meaning and identity.
Néill O'Dwyer is a senior research fellow and the principal investigator (PI) of 'Performative Investigations in Extended and Augmented Reality Technologies' (PIX-ART), in the Dept. of Drama at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. He was formerly an awardee of the prestigious Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Research Fellowship. He specialises in practice-based research in digital art and performance.
Joslin McKinney is Professor of Scenography at the University of Leeds, UK. She is the lead author of the Cambridge Introduction to Scenography (2009) and co-editor of Scenography Expanded (Bloomsbury, 2017). She has published articles and chapters
on scenographic research methods, scenographic spectacle and embodied spectatorship, phenomenology, kinaesthetic empathy and material agency.
Scott Palmer is Professor of Light and Performance in the School of Performance & Cultural Industries, University of Leeds, UK. He is the co-editor with Joslin McKinney of
Scenography Expanded: An Introduction to Contemporary Performance Design and with Katherine Graham and Kelli Zezulka of
Contemporary Performance Lighting: Experience, Creativity and Meaning.Stephen A. Di Benedetto is Professor and Chair of the Department of Theatre Michigan State University, USA. He is Associate Editor (Drama) for
ASAP/ Journal and Associate Editor for
Scene . His books include
The Provocation of the Senses in Contemporary Theatre (2010) and
An Introduction to Theatre Design (2012).
