Digital Historiography and Performance

In the wake of the so-called digital revolution, media and technology affect not only performance practices, but also how the history of those practices can be documented, analyzed, and shared. The last several years have seen significant increases in digital research and scholarship projects, as we...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Theatre journal (Washington, D.C.) D.C.), 2016-12, Vol.68 (4), p.507-527
Main Author: Bay-Cheng, Sarah
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Archives & records
Audiences
Bush, George W
Cellular telephones
Communication
Digital broadcasting
Digital humanities
Digital technology
Historiography
Intercultural performance
Libraries
Multimedia
Museums
Smartphones
Sociocultural influences
Software
Stage production
Stewart, Jon
Theater
Writing
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Summary:In the wake of the so-called digital revolution, media and technology affect not only performance practices, but also how the history of those practices can be documented, analyzed, and shared. The last several years have seen significant increases in digital research and scholarship projects, as well as more official recognition throughout the field, including special issues and edited collections dedicated to the digital humanities in theatre and performance studies research. At the same time, digital technologies offer new approaches to history that may themselves resemble performance. These histories need not be only linear, narrative historiography, but can enable a conception of historiography that exists in multiple places at once, incorporates many voices (some contradictory), and is distributed, sometimes bodily, among multiple perspectives. This essay considers both the distinctions between digital performance and digital methodologies in performance history and historiography, and how these changing digital practices—both methodological and creative—are shaping both the history of performance and history as performance. It responds to larger trends in digital methods affecting not only academia, but also contemporary culture more broadly. The convergence of these inquiries into digital history and theatre culminates in a case study of the Decision Points Theater at the George W. Bush Presidential Museum and Library in Dallas, where the recent history of the Bush presidency can be played out in real time by visitors through digital, performative displays.
ISSN:0192-2882
1086-332X
1086-332X
DOI:10.1353/tj.2016.0104