Description
Book SynopsisCovid-19 has been described as a digital pandemic'. But who might the characterisation of the pandemic as digital' leave behind? This timely book reconsiders the pandemic as postdigital', examining tensions between a growing postdigital attitude of disenchantment with digital technologies and the increasing reliance on adapted modes of online practice mid-lockdown in both performance-making and healthcare.
What emerged amidst the pandemic restrictions was a theatre that was unable to show its face, instead adapting into a variety of covid-safe' remote forms of engagement, from Zoom plays' to self-generating experiences sent by post. This book explores the ways that both performances and healthcare practices found proxies for direct touch and face-to-face encounters, deconstructing the way that care and resilience were spectacularized by political actors online.
Liam Jarvis and Karen Savage explore aspects of care in relation to technology, spectacle and f
Trade Review
As theatre and performance struggle to emerge in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, Postdigital Performances of Care provides a distinct lens through which to review our collective experiences and to reimagine possibilities for the future. Critical, insightful and compassionate throughout, the book reflects on the many meanings of care and challenges us to reconsider the "new normal". The authors present a compelling provocation for the field and how we might rethink performance itself in the current context. * Sarah Bay-Cheng, York University, Canada *
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Series Editors’ Preface Opening Provocation: Soft Spaces; Hard Edges By Proto-type Theater Introduction: A ‘Postdigital Pandemic’? Chapter 1: Spectacles of Resilience: Postdigital Online Theatre & Mid-pandemic Resilience A Postdigital Attitude: Blind Spots in Digital Culture Vacant Theatres as Nightingale Courtrooms Theatre as Social Services: Slung Low & Holbeck Food Bank Chapter 2: Theatre’s ‘Loss of Face’: The Levinasian Problem of Face-to-Face Encounters Mid-pandemic Ambivalent Otherness: Face Ethics Mid-lockdown Patching into the Past: Coney’s Telephone Lockdown as a Hotel Room Without a Door: Thaddeus Phillips’ Zoo Motel Chapter 3: The Spectacularization of Care Online Performing Handshakes: From Defiant Gestural Retail Politics to ‘Bioweapon’ Performing Applause: From Doorstep Clapping to Anti-Hero Worship Resilience Optics: Surveillance Technologies as Care Symbols in ‘Drone Captain Tom’ Chapter 4: Digital Care & Pandemic Care Ethics in Post-internet Cultures: ‘Caring about’ & ‘Caring for’ ‘Caring About’ Expanded: Webs of Interdependencies What Counts as ‘Digital Care’? Care as ‘Virtue Signaling’ on Social Media? Detached Touch: ‘Posting About’ as ‘Caring About’? Care and Memory in Miguel Angel Muñoz and Luisa Cantero's 100 Days with Tata Regressing in Care: Russell Howard’s Home Time Theatre as Care Package: Nightcap’s Handle With Care Chapter 5: Digital Twins, Avatars & the Metaverse AI-generated Avatars on Lensa Avatar Band Members in Aespa The Metaverse Conclusion: Meta-Resilience & the ‘New Normal’ Endnotes References Index
