briefingpaper: Digital Tools for Performance

The focus of this paper is to take a very selective look at some of the ways that practitioners have used digital tools in the course of planning, designing, ‘doing’, communicating and documenting performancerelated works, a term that covers an enormous amount of territory and is intrinsically cross-disciplinary, connecting activities as diverse as design, music, drama, electrical engineering, human movement studies, communications theory, literary studies, and so forth. Perhaps the most straightforward method of defining what ‘performance’ involves is to consider the disciplinary areas which feature it as an activity. AHDS (Arts and Humanities Data Service) Performing Arts define those categories as:

• Music
• Dance
• Theatre
• Radio
• Film
• Television
• Performance (Live Art)

In order to comply with the general aim of this series of working papers, which is targeted more towards individual academics or research groups who are looking to increase their knowledge of the types of tools that will complement and enhance their research, the focus will be geared towards identifying selected techniques and specific software solutions that could potentially empower individuals to broaden, add value and enrich their (practice-based) research. The technological complexity that underpins the capture and delivery of performance footage in the realm of radio, film and television often requires an institutional or commercial infrastructure and is therefore largely beyond the scope of this paper and will not be specifically addressed.

http://methodsnetwork.ac.uk/redist/pdf/wkp07.pdf

This paper is one of nine working papers written for the AHRC ICT Methods Network. The Methods Network Working Papers form part of the range of information and support materials that have been assembled to assist arts and humanities researchers with the task of acquiring knowledge about ICT tools and methods. The papers focus on various different disciplines but also highlight where tools and methods can be of benefit to multiple subject areas.

It is anticipated that these documents may serve a number of non-exclusive functions:

• To provide a foundation document to provoke discussion and value-added commentary;
• As reference documents that foreground links and references to other material;
• As an introductory resource for researchers who are new to digital developments in a particular subject area;
• As a knowledge-gathering exercise to assist the Methods Network with event organisation and community-building activities.