Performance Art Using Biometric Data

Abstract

Summary This research analyzes performance art that uses biometric data, based on two concept perspectives – inhuman interconnections and transcorporeality – applied to examples of European performance art from Lithuania, Finland, Poland, and Denmark. The term performance art theoretically refers to all art that involves the human body, human biometric data, inhuman interconnections, transcorporeality, and liminal space. This study examines the differences between wide-scope interactive art and design and performance art involving biometric data created through the application of recent developments in consumer technology for live events. This research examined three case projects through the method of autoethnography. The data presented in the article was either collected during the author’s performance art events or at performances the author was attending as a visitor. The cases are analyzed by means of qualitative data analysis, utilizing terms representing human biometric data and interactivity adopted from research within the fields of interactive art and interactive design. The study examines the combination of biometric data and art to explain the phenomenon of humans meeting technology, revealed through data collected from a body and transmitted to an audience during a performance art event. The conclusion revisits the key terms – performance art, biometric data, inhuman interconnections and transcorporeality – as applied to artistic practices, where performance art and biometric data meet.