Digital Practices: An aesthetic and neuroesthetic approach to virtuality and embodiment

Abstract

Digital practices: an Aesthetic and Neuroesthetic approach to Virtuality and EmbodimentIn this paper, I offer a description of various performance and art practices which involve interaction with "new technologies"-such as, motion tracking, artificial intelligence, 3D modeling and animation, robotics, digital paint, interactive sound technology, and biotechnology.My theoretical approach consists of both an aesthetic perspective, a development from my previous liminal theorisation, and a neuroesthetic approach, which relates to the biological processes that inform how we perceive. According to Heidegger:Because the essence of technology is nothing technological, essential reflection upon technology and decisive confrontation with it must happen in a realm that is, on the one hand, akin to the essence of technology and, on the other, fundamentally different from it.Such a realm is art.(1977, 35) Performance and technology in all its divergent forms is an emergent area of performance practice which reflects a certain being in the world -a Zeitgeist; in short, it provides a reflection of our contemporary world at the beginning of the twenty-first century.In a relatively short period of time there has been an explosion of new technologies that have infiltrated all areas of life and irreversibly altered our lives. Consequences of this technological permeation are both ontological and