TP5007 - Performance and Digital Cultures

This module is taught via seminars and workshops. Typically, one week will introduce a key critical or creative concept during a seminar with structured reading and the following week will explore related ideas in a task-oriented workshop. The workshops are an opportunity to test our ideas as well as get hands-on experiences with methodologies, techniques, and approaches to making digitally-orientated performance practices. Workshops will work through a series of structured practical investigations on topics that might include: live feed video performance, light as material, audio landscapes, mixed reality techniques, social media performances, and writing for the internet age. Alongside staff presentations, reading materials and performance viewings (live or recorded) the structured programme of workshops will help students you to build knowledge of and skills in the areas of performance and practice research addressed on the module.

You will be supported to design, contextualise and present your practice research project. As such, tutors will support you to engage with workshop tasks that combine group tasks and exercises with sharing of your work as it developes, alongside debates and discussions that reflect on your practice and the research materials you encounter. The module creates space for you to advance your knowledge, consolidate learning and develop your voice as a critical practitioner while receiving regular formative feedback your from tutors and fellow students.

The sessions will be supported by material on Blackboard, the e-learning portal, with preparatory tasks and supporting information or additional research relating to the sessions. You will receive informal feedback via the tutor and peers during the task-orientated workshops and seminar discussions. The workshops are designed to allow you to explore theoretical ideas in practice.
Information and resources will be available to you 24/7 viaBlackboard and the 'Reading List' contains links to readings, websites and online video material which can help you develop appropriate knowledge and understanding.
Written assessment feedback will be provided within 20 working days of summative assignment submission. Access to library facilities is available 24-7 all year round.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

Knowledge & Understanding:
? Identify, critique, and propose timely performances that investigate the social, aesthetic and political impacts of digital cultures.

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:
? Demonstrate an ability to propose, develop and realise a creative response to digitally-orientated politics, social contexts and aesthetics.

Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):
? Develop an awareness of digital inequalities and challenge assumptions on technology-centric readings of digital culture.

Formative
Students will share their argument in response to the set provocation as an oral presentation. Staff and peers will offer feedback in class.

Summative


Practice Research project (100%) comprising:
• A demonstration of practice (c. 5 – 10 minutes, as appropriate to form of practice and in discussion with tutor);
• A 1000-words (or equivalent) statement contextualising the practice research demonstration.

In response to a staff provocation or live brief, you will work in small groups to develop, rehearse and realise a practical response (such as performance, workshop, installation or another agreed other format) that investigates the intersection of practice and theory.

The format of the practical demonstration will be agreed in discussion with the module convenor. The 1000 word (or equivalent) research statement will outline the critical and creative references that have informed the project, and how they have done so

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This module focuses on how digital cultures are investigated through theatre and performance practices. The notion of ‘digital culture’ is explored in an expansive way to consider how ‘digital perspectives’ are represented in live performance works, along with providing tools for representation. This is inclusive of approaches to mixed reality, gaming theatre, and online performances along with plays that take ‘the internet’ as their subject (such as Tim Price’s Teh Internet is Serious Business and Jennifer Haley’s The Nether). As a research informed module, the interests and specialisms of the staff will guide the workshops included each year. The overall aim is to prepare students to identify, critique, and stage timely performances that investigate the social, aesthetic and political impacts of digital cultures (whether local or global) beyond a focus on the technology alone.