Engaging New Media in Performance Space: New Tools, New Settings, New Bodily Experiences

Performance, by creating an instant and non-repeated situation and dynamic, fluid, organic relations with the body provides productive potentials for constructing space in architecture. It has experimental properties and these provide potentials for architects in designing space since architecture is as an intellectual field nourished by different disciplines. From past to present, technology has always played an essential role in the formation of performance spaces. Performance spaces are places where the body is both the acting and following subject with an interaction between the two. The transition from mechanical to digital/computational technologies nowadays has also changed the tools used for building up space. Technology undertakes an important role in space creation; it describes the relation and interaction between body and space. It influences the transformation and reproduction of perception created by space. The use of new technological tools in the creation of space creates illusions and inversions in perception. As a result, with this use, the real and also the virtual; as the representation of the real, become visible. This new situation establishes new and unexpected experiences for both the performer and the audience. Performative environments engaging new media create kinds of media utilizing integration of mobile, integrated and networked technologies. The extensive changes traced in performance arts have also created new spaces formed by technology, interactivity and performativity, with dynamic, liquid, open and animated outcomes, all related to the body. The aim of this chapter is to examine and discuss the impact of new media, technologies upon performance space and the body and the way how the spatial experience can be augmented in instant, dynamic, interactive spatial environment by focusing on creative performances. The chapter will explore interactive interfaces, digital performances, and responsive environments by discussing the changing representation of the body.