In the interplay between people and technology, performance art as evocative as anything you’ll witness in a theater can be born.
According to Oolite Arts digital arts fellow Kelani Nichole, time-based media art is a descriptor perfectly encapsulating contemporary artistic practices that engage technology, as the term honors the performative magic that can accompany our engagement with virtual worlds.
“Every time you engage with a file, there’s a performative aspect to it,” Nichole says. “When artists engage with technology in critical practice, they’re not using technology in the way it was created or intended. They’re using it in more subversive ways. They’re thinking about reframing and repurposing technology. It’s the kind of practice that helps us, as a culture, see the ways that technology is affecting our humanness, all of the implications it’s built upon, and the hegemonic power structures that rule it. It’s almost like you’re seeing the matrix unfold around you.”
