Digital Performance: A History of New Media in Theatre, Dance, Performance Art, and Installation (review)

Steve Dixon and Barry Smith's provocative and thoughtful book provides an introduction to and solid grounding in the theories, practices, and critical perspectives that underlie the emerging field of digital performance studies. The work, published as part of the Leonardo series that focuses on the convergence of art, science, and technology, forges new ground in documenting and analyzing a vast array of practices involving the use of computer-based technologies in the creation, dissemination, presentation, and documentation of performance works. More than merely providing a visual and descriptive investigation of specific projects and key artists though, the authors offer a comprehensive evaluation of the genesis and impact of new media technologies on diverse performing arts genres, using information culled from the Digital Performance Archive—a database that Dixon and Smith established to record technologically mediated activities. Their extensive and detailed analysis of digital performance includes a review of existing literature in the field, a history of the technical innovations that gave rise to new tools and formats, and a genealogy of the discipline's ideological influences.

Early on in the book's introductory section, Dixon and Smith define digital performance as "all performance works where computer technologies play a key role rather than a subsidiary one in content, techniques, aesthetics, or delivery forms" (3). They argue that digital performance events grew out of avant-garde traditions, and that experimentation continues to play an integral role in shaping the content and delivery of new works. In their introduction, the authors also state that the aim of the text is to "trace back the roots of and early experiments in digital performance, and to highlight the often unsung pioneers in the field who might otherwise slip into history without recognition" (31). In so doing, they establish an accessible approach to study and an applied model of research.

The main body of the text is divided into two parts. The first contains chapters dealing with the histories, theories, and contexts of digital performance events and scholarship. In the first four chapters, the authors present an elaborate and meticulously documented account of the evolution of technology usage in theatre and performance, beginning with the Greeks and continuing to the present day. I found chapter 5, which examines two pivotal performance events that took place during the 1960s involving multimedia tools and techniques, to be especially useful and engaging. The case studies are presented in a concise and organized fashion, thus allowing for different artists and practices to be discussed in relation to one another and with reference to their collective contributions to the development of digital performance studies.

Chapters exploring the theoretical underpinnings of the field follow in order. Here, the authors attempt to provide explanations of and contexts for understanding seminal concepts, discourses, and lexicons mostly derived from other disciplines. Complicated and oftentimes controversial precepts such as "liveness," "remediation," and "posthumanism" are given ample consideration by the authors. Yet, the chapters dealing with critical perspectives are the weakest and most problematic portions of the text. Most troubling are the phrases that Dixon and Smith employ to describe complex theories—language that struck me as unnecessarily complicated or altogether obtuse. When the authors refer to "techno-postmodern aesthetic theory," for example, as they do more than once in the book, what, exactly, are they speaking about? Due in large part to awkward phrasing, these chapters seem inadvertently pretentious and potentially alienating.

The second section of the book delves into subjects related to digital performance practice—specifically, themes, actions, and events that concern the body, space, and time. In it, the authors seek to position specific projects and practitioners within modernist avant-garde traditions, in keeping with their argument that digital performance represents an art form that is both experimental and entirely new. The sixteen chapters that comprise this section touch upon a plethora of topics, including virtual spaces, robot and cyborg performances, projected...