Postdigital Performances of Care
Technology & Pandemic
Published on 24. July 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
136 pages
978-1-350-27211-8 (ISBN)
Description
Covid-19 has been described as a 'digital pandemic'. But who might the characterisation of the pandemic as 'digital' leave behind? This timely book reconsiders the pandemic as 'postdigital', examining tensions between a growing postdigital attitude of disenchantment with digital technologies and the increasing reliance on adapted modes of online practice mid-lockdown in both performance-making and healthcare.
What emerged amidst the pandemic restrictions was a theatre that was unable to show its face, instead adapting into a variety of 'covid-safe' remote forms of engagement, from 'Zoom plays' to self-generating experiences sent by post. This book explores the ways that both performances and healthcare practices found proxies for direct touch and face-to-face encounters, deconstructing the way that care and resilience were spectacularized by political actors online.
Liam Jarvis and Karen Savage explore aspects of care in relation to technology, spectacle and facilitation, and how new modes of delivery and the repurposing of theatre spaces that were displaced amidst the mass migration online have been enabling as well as controversial. The variety of case studies assessed includes internet memes, online films, performances of everyday resilience through social media and participatory theatre productions, including Thaddeus Phillips' Zoom Motel, Coney's Telephone and Nightcap's Handle with Care.
What emerged amidst the pandemic restrictions was a theatre that was unable to show its face, instead adapting into a variety of 'covid-safe' remote forms of engagement, from 'Zoom plays' to self-generating experiences sent by post. This book explores the ways that both performances and healthcare practices found proxies for direct touch and face-to-face encounters, deconstructing the way that care and resilience were spectacularized by political actors online.
Liam Jarvis and Karen Savage explore aspects of care in relation to technology, spectacle and facilitation, and how new modes of delivery and the repurposing of theatre spaces that were displaced amidst the mass migration online have been enabling as well as controversial. The variety of case studies assessed includes internet memes, online films, performances of everyday resilience through social media and participatory theatre productions, including Thaddeus Phillips' Zoom Motel, Coney's Telephone and Nightcap's Handle with Care.
Reviews / Votes
As theatre and performance struggle to emerge in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, Postdigital Performances of Care provides a distinct lens through which to review our collective experiences and to reimagine possibilities for the future. Critical, insightful and compassionate throughout, the book reflects on the many meanings of care and challenges us to reconsider the "new normal". The authors present a compelling provocation for the field and how we might rethink performance itself in the current context. * Sarah Bay-Cheng, York University, Canada *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 126 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
Weight
140 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-350-27211-8 (9781350272118)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
12/2023
1st Edition
Methuen Drama
€24.49
Available for download
E-Book
12/2023
1st Edition
Methuen Drama
€24.49
Available for download
Persons
Liam Jarvis is a theatre-maker, practitioner-researcher, Co-director of the Centre for Theatre Research (CTR) and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies at the University of Essex, UK.
Karen Savage is Head of Arts, Culture and Heritage for the College of Arts and Professor of Creative and Collaborative Arts at the University of Lincoln, UK.
Karen Savage is Head of Arts, Culture and Heritage for the College of Arts and Professor of Creative and Collaborative Arts at the University of Lincoln, UK.
Content
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Series Editors' Preface
Opening Provocation: Soft Spaces; Hard Edges
By Proto-type Theater
Introduction: A 'Postdigital Pandemic'?
Chapter 1: Spectacles of Resilience: Postdigital
Online Theatre & Mid-pandemic Resilience
A Postdigital Attitude: Blind Spots in Digital Culture
Vacant Theatres as Nightingale Courtrooms
Theatre as Social Services: Slung Low & Holbeck Food Bank
Chapter 2: Theatre's 'Loss of Face': The Levinasian Problem of Face-to-Face Encounters Mid-pandemic
Ambivalent Otherness: Face Ethics Mid-lockdown
Patching into the Past: Coney's Telephone
Lockdown as a Hotel Room Without a Door: Thaddeus Phillips' Zoo Motel
Chapter 3: The Spectacularization of Care Online
Performing Handshakes: From Defiant Gestural Retail Politics to 'Bioweapon'
Performing Applause: From Doorstep Clapping to Anti-Hero Worship
Resilience Optics: Surveillance Technologies as Care Symbols in 'Drone Captain Tom'
Chapter 4: Digital Care & Pandemic
Care Ethics in Post-internet Cultures: 'Caring about' & 'Caring for'
'Caring About' Expanded: Webs of Interdependencies
What Counts as 'Digital Care'?
Care as 'Virtue Signaling' on Social Media?
Detached Touch: 'Posting About' as 'Caring About'?
Care and Memory in Miguel Angel Munoz and Luisa Cantero's 100 Days with Tata
Regressing in Care: Russell Howard's Home Time
Theatre as Care Package: Nightcap's Handle With Care
Chapter 5: Digital Twins, Avatars & the Metaverse
AI-generated Avatars on Lensa
Avatar Band Members in Aespa
The Metaverse
Conclusion: Meta-Resilience & the 'New Normal'
Endnotes
References
Index
Acknowledgements
Series Editors' Preface
Opening Provocation: Soft Spaces; Hard Edges
By Proto-type Theater
Introduction: A 'Postdigital Pandemic'?
Chapter 1: Spectacles of Resilience: Postdigital
Online Theatre & Mid-pandemic Resilience
A Postdigital Attitude: Blind Spots in Digital Culture
Vacant Theatres as Nightingale Courtrooms
Theatre as Social Services: Slung Low & Holbeck Food Bank
Chapter 2: Theatre's 'Loss of Face': The Levinasian Problem of Face-to-Face Encounters Mid-pandemic
Ambivalent Otherness: Face Ethics Mid-lockdown
Patching into the Past: Coney's Telephone
Lockdown as a Hotel Room Without a Door: Thaddeus Phillips' Zoo Motel
Chapter 3: The Spectacularization of Care Online
Performing Handshakes: From Defiant Gestural Retail Politics to 'Bioweapon'
Performing Applause: From Doorstep Clapping to Anti-Hero Worship
Resilience Optics: Surveillance Technologies as Care Symbols in 'Drone Captain Tom'
Chapter 4: Digital Care & Pandemic
Care Ethics in Post-internet Cultures: 'Caring about' & 'Caring for'
'Caring About' Expanded: Webs of Interdependencies
What Counts as 'Digital Care'?
Care as 'Virtue Signaling' on Social Media?
Detached Touch: 'Posting About' as 'Caring About'?
Care and Memory in Miguel Angel Munoz and Luisa Cantero's 100 Days with Tata
Regressing in Care: Russell Howard's Home Time
Theatre as Care Package: Nightcap's Handle With Care
Chapter 5: Digital Twins, Avatars & the Metaverse
AI-generated Avatars on Lensa
Avatar Band Members in Aespa
The Metaverse
Conclusion: Meta-Resilience & the 'New Normal'
Endnotes
References
Index