What Choreography is or might be in the Post-Digital Era? A Study on the Kinaesthetic Expressions of Digital Performance

Abstract

 The purpose of this article is to analyse how the concept of choreography developed in the post-digital era. The modern term choreography indicates the making process of a 'relational performance architecture' consisting of the hybridisation of kinaesthetic and mediatic presences (Birringer 2004). Accordingly, the paper aims to discuss recent the decline of digital performance based on the migration (Bishop 2018; Monda 2020) of the kinaesthetic experience in choreographic artifacts. By considering three artworks performed in the context of the DRHA Conference Exhibition 2023 – a demo in Extended Reality, a performance in Virtual Reality, and a digital installation with the application of Artificial Intelligence. The subject will be discussed, going through three definitions of choreography.  Firstly, choreography is examined as the transcodification of the movement qualities into a 'liquid architecture' (Novack 2010) planned to transmit and translate somatic information throughout digital circuits. Secondly, the paper explores the concept of 'mobile architecture' (Manning 2013), which underlined a conception of choreography as an event for the ontogenetic architecture of environments in movement (Manning & Massumi 2014). A third approach considers the multiple ways of writing/coding/designing computer-generated movements by transmedia strategies (Jürgon 2016).  The term transmedia choreography is investigated taking into consideration how the knowledge embodied by experiencing movement, can shape the dialogue between several media choreographed together to establish a ‘kinesfield’ (Shiller 2003), an interactive platform designed for disseminating intangible cultural heritage (Monda 2022).