Aesthetics of The Social Object and the Value of Intentional Liveness

I’m quite eager to find people to explore some complex ideas and figure out how they might be implemented or expressed in tangible ways. I’m happy to either “teach” the ideas that I’ve been wrestling with or, preferably, talk about them in a way that could lead to playing and/or making. Here are some of them:

Performance as Object – If we consider performance as conceptual object (like an “object” in “object oriented programming”) framed by time, or a social object around which interpersonal networks can be formed, what are the fundamental construction materials of that object and how do we create a taxonomy of actions, routines and subroutines to support a new framework for seeing performance?

New Media Processes & Analog Production – How do performance makers look to the development and production processes of the software and technology sectors to innovate their current processes – and what are the aesthetic implications?

Intentional Liveness in a Digital World – In a world where our experience is increasingly mediated by the digital, what is the value of non-mediated space and intentional liveness? What is the value of creating analog experiences IRL and how do we create meaningful, transformative experiences that move seamlessly between mediated and live space?

Digital Dramaturgy – what does it look like to use new media & social media tools to create an ongoing knowledge base and living archive of the research process for building contemporary performances and increasing engagement before & after the event itself?

Socially Engaged Art & Big Data – how do artists engage with Big Data in meaningful ways to create transformative experiences? For example, bringing performance makers together with the developer teams of Code For America.

Performance, Liveness and Value – if the transactional model (buy a ticket, see a show) is no longer a sustainable, viable model for the development, production and touring of performance, what are new models for the valuation of live experience, what is the role of IP in that discussion and how do we track and re-value content as iterates over multiple platforms?

Categories: Session Proposals |

About Andrew Horwitz

I'm the founder and publisher of Culturebot.org, a platform for critical discourse and conversation on the contemporary performing arts. I'm a writer, curator and producer. Most recently I curated The River To River Festival in Lower Manhattan (June 15 - July 14) and I was a co-curator of The Prelude Festival at the Segal Center for three years.

1 Response to Aesthetics of The Social Object and the Value of Intentional Liveness

  1. Philip Boxer says:

    Andrew, great question… my own view is that it ‘has’ to be approached through an appreciation of our being subjects of the unconscious if we are to grasp what is at stake… so the performativity of performance depends not only on the formation of the performance, but also on how we each ‘read’ it with respect to our particular manque-à-être.

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