Introduction: Performance Arts and Technology: Research in the Age of Digital Revolution

Abstract

Compared with the age-old tradition of culture which is shaped by the humanities, digital culture has a rather short history. However, digital culture is a game changer that has disrupted almost all spheres of life, resulting in a reconceptualisation of the humanistic views of the world. The rise of digital culture in recent decades has brought about a revolution in culture that can be attributed to the maturity and wide application of digital technologies in cultural production. It is a typical case of technology translation and application, with renewed presentations of old contents. Though being technologised, cultural production still relies on contents and sources from the humanities. The content re-creations used in digital communication, advertising, public display, exhibition projection, imaging, interactive game, digital film, electronic music, virtual reality and other forms of mass consumption are derived from stories in the traditional humanities, such as historical stories, drama, literature, paintings, music, and in popular culture, such as cartoons, comics, and pop songs. On the other hand, as digital technology has gained wider impacts, new forms of cultural production have taken shape that affect the patterns of consumption and expression. In his book Being Digital (1995), Nicholas Negroponte envisages a world in which all necessities and communication become digitized and online contacts replace in-person interactions. Digitization occurs in all forms of social activities with people becoming more and more dependent on technology. Such a mode of life gives rise to a culture of “digitalism,” in which the virtual replaces the real, making it all the more possible in transcending the boundaries of life. This is what Negroponte calls a revolution of being digitalized in the twenty-first century.