Interactive documentary and live performance: From embodied to emplaced interaction

Aston, Judith

Abstract

In 2015, I gave a keynote lecture on ‘Interactive Documentary and Live Performance’ (Aston 2015), a subject which has received little attention to date within the field of interactive documentary practice. My argument was that the sense of time, place and occasion that surrounds live performance has a role to play within interactive documentary and that there is much to be learnt about this from the world of interactive theatre. I showed a number of examples, suggesting that performative approaches could inform mediated as well as live work, and that there was much scope for creating interesting synergies between these two processes. This paper builds on this keynote, by tightening up my argument and bringing in some new examples. It also situates my work alongside Julie Fischer’s MSc dissertation on ‘The Emerging Field of Live Documentary Practice’ (2014), the work of Paul Dourish (2001) on ‘embodied interaction’, and the work of David Howes (2004) and Sarah Pink (2009) on the emerging paradigm of ‘emplacement’. In bringing together these different strands, I suggest a new term through which to interrogate i-docs: ‘emplaced interaction’.

Citation

Aston, J. (2017). Interactive documentary and live performance: From embodied to emplaced interaction. In M. Rose, S. Gaudenzi, & J. Aston (Eds.), The Evolving Practices of Interactive Documentary (222-237). New York: Wallflower, subsidiary of Columbia University Press

• Publication Date: Feb 28, 2017
• Deposit Date: Mar 23, 2017
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 1
• Pages: 222-237
• Series Title: Non fictions
• Book Title: The Evolving Practices of Interactive Documentary
• ISBN: 9780231181228
• Keywords: interactive documentary, live performance, emplaced interaction
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/897902
• Publisher URL: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/i-docs/9780231181235