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In Memory of the Q-File

Spontaneity, Digital Automation, and Deskilling in Theatre Lighting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2024

Martin Young
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Abstract

Discussion of “digital performance” is preoccupied with themes of fluidity, variation, ambiguity, and resistance to rigid categorization. And yet these themes correspond more closely to analog principles. The digital ethos indicates regularity, precision, and the elimination of ambivalence. The rationalized industrial practices of stage management, blocking and, in particular, lighting cues prioritize the precisely timed and accurate reproduction of stage images through the instant recall of digital memory.

Type
Special Issue Still Exhausted: Labor, Digital Technologies, and the Performing Arts
Information
TDR , Volume 68 , Issue 1: Still Exhausted: Labor, Digital Technologies, and the Performing Arts , March 2024 , pp. 143 - 156
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press for Tisch School of the Arts/NYU

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References

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