Study on Performativity of Site-Specific Performance Related to Using Technology

Abstract

A site-specific performance is a genre and a phenomenon that has recently emerged as a recent paradigm of performing arts: a communality. It basically involves performativity of audience and use of the latest technologies. This study aims to figure out novel methods of communication and the relationship between performativity within a performance and technologies that are used by analyzing “Lost Missing and Forgotten” which is a collaboration of two choreographers from Finland and Korea created in 2012. Three principles of performativity which have been borrowed as key tools for this study are role reversal, community building and contact. Based on these three principles from “The Aesthetics of Performativity” written by Erika-Fischer Lichte in 2017, performativity of performers and audience and influences of technologies to the performance have been addressed. The study results show that technologies can act as an environmental factor that determines the engagement level of audience throughout a performance which is basically a tour around a forgotten place, Dae lim plaza in Jongro. Additionally, there were audience engagement through role reversal, community building through strolling and participation in a performance by contact. To summarize, it is important to understand that recent trend of audience engagement and use of technologies throughout a performance is changing the conventional paradigm in the performing arts scene. This study also has an artistic significance as it shows how development of technologies such as VR and AI can realize its full potential to audience in terms of contemporary arts.