Performing Presence ― Between the Live and the Simulated

Performing presence: Between the live and the simulated proposes that the advent of new media forms, and the increasing integration of contemporary performance and media, has generated new engagements, practices and understandings of presence.

Addressing new media art and performance, multi-media theatre, video installation, mixed reality environments and locative arts, the book presents case studies of work by Lynn Hershman Leeson, Paul Sermon, Gary Hill, Tony Oursler, The Builders Association and Blast Theory, as well as analyses of a series of related experiments created for CAVE, an immersive virtual reality environment. Performing presence combines extensive analysis, and extracts from interviews with the artists, as well as the documentation of elements of work and working processes, in order to provide specific insight into these engagements with contemporary practices and concepts presence.

This book will be of interest to students, researchers and practitioners of theatre and performance, contemporary art, media, new media and technology.

Gabriella Giannachi is Professor of Performance and New Media and Director of the Centre for Intermedia at the University of Exeter.

Nick Kaye is Dean of the College of Humanities and Professor of Performance Studies at the University of Exeter.