Differentiating live performance and telepresence in performance:

'Performance art is an event (a happening); it happens live, it is ephemeral art, it has physical presence, and it is open to the participation of the audience. However, Performances in telepresence happen at the computer World Wide Web: they are deterritorialized bodies reorganized (re-orphans) in monitors that are dispersed in the world.'

'The uniqueness of the language of Performance art is happening in life (in actual presence and in real time), and being open for the audience participation, sometimes making the audience its co-author. Video technology allows the performance to happen in quasi-real time; however, its presence is a ghostly one, a spectral presence that we name telepresence.'

'Telepresence is spectral image because it has no physical presence. The spectrum referred to by Derrida is the absence of the father; it has no origin; it is immutable and, as it is, dead. Telepresence is sensible; it comes from the father; it is live logos.' (De Medeiros, Maria Beatriz, 2003)

References

Back to Page