Mapping Intermediality in Performance

This volume examines afresh the impact upon acting and performance of digital technologies. It is concerned with how digital culture combines the traditional ‘liveness’ of theatre with media interfaces and internet protocols. The time and space of the ‘here and now’ are both challenged and adapted, just as barriers between theatre-makers and the ‘experiencers’ of events are broken down. Today many of us are everyday players performing the interconnectedness of digital culture and a key aim of the book is to unpack the multiple interrelations within the landscape of contemporary performance. Access to a range of ‘instances’ (The Builders Association, Castellucci, Castorf, Gob Squad, Lepage, Second Life and VJing) is through ‘portals’ which afford perspectives on the main characteristics of theatre and performance in the digital age.

Andy Lavender is Dean of Research and Professor of Contemporary Theatre at The Central School of Speech & Drama, University of London. He is co-convener of the Intermediality in Theatre and Performance working group of the International Federation for Theatre Research, and was formerly co-convener of the New Technologies for Theatre working group of the Theatre and Performance Research Association. Chiel Kattenbelt is Associate Professor in Media Comparison and Intermediality at Utrecht University. He teaches in the BA program Theatre, Film and Television Studies, in the MA programs Theatre Studies and New Media and Digital Culture and in the Research MA program Media and Performance Studies. Sarah Bay-Cheng is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Theatre at the University at Buffalo, where she teaches performance theory, avant-garde theatre and film, and intermedial performance.