Performing Arts as a Limit to the Digital: Theatrical Space, Embodied Co‑Presence, and the Politics of Ephemeral Action
Year: 2026
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: This article develops the hypothesis that the performing arts—unlike visual, musical, or pictorial arts—constitute an essential limit to digitalization. Their irreducible requirement of embodied co‑presence (Phelan 1993; Fischer‑Lichte 2008), their ephemeral temporality (Phelan 1993; Schneider 2011), and their intersubjective structure of meaning‑making position them as a privileged site of resistance to algorithmic rationality. Drawing on classical Greek theater, philosophical anthropology, and contemporary analyses of digital temporality (Stiegler 1998; Crary 2013; Chun 2016), the article argues that theatrical action reactivates the political, existential, and communal dimensions of human coexistence. In an era of pervasive digital communication and surveillance (Zuboff 2019; Crawford 2021), the performing arts re‑emerge as forms of subversive rupture that recreate free public time and reassert the primacy of lived experience.
Author: Schismenos, Alexandros
Language: English
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7135388003
FWCI:
Cites:
Cited by:
Related to: