Title:
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MINDtouch : ephemeral transference : liveness in networked performance with mobile devices
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This practice-based thesis investigates the four key qualities of 'liveness', 'feltness', 'embodiment'
and 'presence' in mobile media performance, in order to shed light on the use qualities and
sensations that emerge when mobile technologies are used in tandem with wearable devices in
performance contexts. The research explores mobile media as a non-verbal and visual
communication tool that functions by repurposing the mobile phone device and its connection to a
wireless network, not only for communication but explicitly for the expression of 'emotion' in the
form of a video file representing an interpersonal connection shared over distance. The research
aims to identify and supplement existing scholarly discourse on the nature of these four key strands
of kinaesthetic philosophy made 'live' in the online network, applying knowledge gained through
the practice of enhancing participant experience of the use of simple ubiquitous mobile tools with
bespoke biofeedback sensors and an online repository for the playback of users' visual
expressions. This enhanced toolkit enables participants to share personal relationships and social
interactions in an immediate way, with collaborators at a distance; The selected methodology of
active research using kinaesthetic tools in live performance seeks to identify and clarify new ways
of simulating or emulating a non-verbal, visual exchange within a social participatory context, with
particular attention paid to a sense of 'feltness' as an element of 'presence' or 'liveness', and with
attention to the experience of a sense of 'co-presence' arising in real-time collaborative mobile
performances at a distance.
To best explore these concepts as well as the bodily sensations involved for participants, the thesis
analyses original data gleaned from a larger R&D project (conducted in tandem with this thesis
project, sponsored by the BBC) as its major case study. The project, called MINDtouch, created
a series of unique practice-based new media performance events played out in real-time
networked contexts. The MINDtouch events were framed as a means for participants to simulate
dream exchange or telepathic thought transfer using mobile phones and biofeedback devices,
linked to a bespoke video file protocol for archiving and sharing visual results. The corporeal, nonverbal
forms of communication and visual interaction observed when participants use such devices
within participatory performance events is examined by way of demonstrating the impact of
specific live encounters and experiences of users in this emerging playing field between real-time
and asynchronous, live and technologised forms expressing liveness/presence/distance. The thesis
benefits from access to the larger MINDtouch project and its original data, providing this research
with a set of process-based evidence files both in video and transcript form (contained in the thesis
appendices). By analysing this unique data set and applying the theoretical contexts of kinaesthetic
philosophies where appropriate, the thesis demonstrates both the practical and the
critical/contextual effectiveness of the media facilitation process for the participants, and shares
their senses of 'liveness' and 'presence' (of themselves and of others) when using technology to
externalise visual expressions of internalised experiences.
This thesis makes an original contribution to scholarship in the fields of Performance and New
Media, with additional contributions to the cognate fields of Philosophy and Technology, and
locates its arguments at the locus of the fields of Performance Art, Mobile Performance/Locative
Media, Philosophies of the Body and Communications. The thesis uses methods, practices and
tools from Phenomenology, Ethnography, Practice-As-Research, and Experience Design, bringing
together the relevant aspects of these diverging areas of new media research and media
art/performance practices. The research demonstrates that there is a need for new technological
tools to express viscerally felt emotion and to communicate more directly. It is hoped that this
study will be of use to future scholars in the arts and technology, and also that it may help to
demonstrate a way of communicating rich emotion through felt and embodied interactions shared
with others across vast distances (thus supporting political movements aimed at reducing global
travel in the age of global warming).
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