At the very beginning of Birkbeck Arts Week 2016, on 16 May 2016, I will be taking part in an event which touches on familiar themes, but perhaps from new angles and through a juxtaposition of fairly different contributors. While I am going to draw upon some recent small-scale qualitative research I’ve undertaken on the interface of hyperlocal and location-based media, I’ll be doing so in conjunction with a theatre-maker (Tassos Stevens) and one of my Birkbeck colleagues working in performance studies (Seda Ilter). Should be an interesting discussion. The full event details are below.

Digital Us: Are We ‘Together’ in a Networked Culture?
Birkbeck Arts Week 2016

Monday, 16 May 2016, 6-7.30pm
Room G10, 43 Gordon Square, Birkbeck, University of London, WC1H 0PD

How are human relationships changing in our digitised, networked environment? Are we getting closer or moving apart from each other? Join interactive theatremaker Tassos Stevens (Coney) and Birkbeck lecturers Scott Rodgers (Media Studies) and Seda Ilter (Theatre and Performance Studies) to ask: what are the consequences of longing to belong in contemporary society? How does theatre respond to these changing realities?

Tassos Stevens will address his talk to the different kinds of present moment and connection possible in person and mediated by technology. He will both reference his own piece Solo Two, which questions whether digital communications are participatory or relational, and the world of REMOTE by Coney, which aims to make an audience into the kind of atomised crowd which takes part online.

Seda Ilter will present some examples of how contemporary theatre and performance respond to the changing dynamics and ideas of human relationships in our digitized culture to open a discussion about whether and how theatre as a social art form and a place of gathering can challenge the ‘myth of us’ as increasingly more social and connected species. Focussing on the spatial and interactive dramaturgy of these performances, she will consider the ways in which theatre can also act as a space of resistance to our increasing social isolation and indifference to one another.

Scott Rodgers will discuss the ambiguous implications that digital technologies pose for one form of proximate human relationships: those residing at ‘the local’. Drawing on a recent study of UK charity Nesta’s Destination Local programme, he will explore tentative attempts to cultivate new forms of UK-based local media through the emergent ecologies of location-based media devices, data, platforms and infrastructures.

Please book for this event via:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/digital-us-are-we-together-in-a-networked-culture-tickets-24291273854

To find out more about Birkbeck Arts Week 2016 visit:
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/arts/about-us/events/arts-week