The way the Internet has challenged the notion of liveness in performance

With the ever growing platforms of technology it was not long before the conventions of performance were challenged through the amount of new ways to carry across a performance. Something that was used years ago known as a ‘Deus Ex Machina’ was used for lifting performers during that of a performance and at the time it was considered quite mind-blowing but now with the age of the internet it has brought on all these new ways of performing, some of these include Cyberformance, Cyberdrama, Cybertheatre(s), Telematic Performance (Streaming) and Hyperperformance (Hypertext). Each of these can be used in very different ways that in some ways link them all back to each other, some of the more common uses for  these are:

Virtual Worlds – This can be created in many different ways including the use of simulation games online, games like this include ‘Second Life’ amongst a lot of others, you could even perform something within a game such as ‘World of Warcraft’ as it allows for players to communicate with each other through the game. There was once live performance of ‘Waiting for Godot’ by Samuel Beckett that was performed online through a game like ‘Second Life’ in which one of the audience members claimed to be Godot which made it so the performers had to adapt their performance to suit it.

Streaming Media – This includes the likes of websites such as Twitch, Mixer or even streaming services such as Netflix or Amazon Prime Video which enable the performer to create a performance and present it to a vast amount of people from around the world similar to that of Virtual Worlds.

Social Media – This is quite self-explanatory but allows for the use of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc. within a performance. This was done before in the form of a performance of Romeo and Juliet which was shown over Twitter with the use of tweets over a select amount of weeks as well as the use of YouTube vlogs so the audience knew about any character changes. This was a very successful performance and the tweets still exist to this day.

As much as all of these new ways of performance led to much more collaboration and many new ways of viewing a performance you have to think about the ways that it changes the idea of a live performance. For a lot of people a live performance is that of something that you experience first-hand in person without it being behind a screen therefore even though some of these performances are live when they are broadcast online it is easy to see the way that they can be considered to not be live as there is suddenly a lack of physical experience. I also feel as though broadcasted performances are easier to control than that of a live stage performance within a theatre but that’s something that’s up for debate.