IS THERE A POSTHUMAN PERFORMER
In this paper, the issues of transgression and subversion of human body in the situation of technologically generated performance are analyzed. Firstly, a theoretical-historical contextualization of the digital environment is made and then examples are analyzed of cyber performance, digital and techno-performance that problematize the relation between the digital system and the body of the performer. This relation has become very important for the understanding of the discontinuity problems between the human and the machine. Therefore I have considered the changing position and the function of a live performer as a performing subject and a performing object in the context of digital performance and performance in cyberspace, from the following aspects: the relation between live body and avatar performer; cyborg performance; independent performance of computers. The central argument focuses on the problem of the post- or non-human performer through the concept I have named “digital anthropomorphism”. According to Bruno Latour, anthropomorphism can mean ‘either that which has human shape or that which gives shape to humans’. Argument is made that a digital environment responds to both parts of this definition. It is both created by humans and at the same time it is shaping the humanity. The invention of cyberspace has redefined our ontology and has become a continuation, extension and even a new dimension of the time-space that we inhabit.
