Theatre and Digital-Analogue Realities
Digitisation has brought about comprehensive transformation processes within society. These have in turn produced different behaviours and ways of perceiving things, influenced forms of work and educational processes and enabled new forms of social participation. Theatre work faces the challenge of finding its place in the post-digital present so that it can play an active role in shaping digital change.
Digitisation doesn’t just imply a technological shift, but has also changed means of communication, forming of perception and ways of seeing things. It is essential to reflect on this comprehensive cultural shift in suitable fashion in relation to its effects on society.
Theatre work with children and young people creates spaces for discussion in which digitisation and its effects on social contexts can be negotiated. What does digitisation mean for how we live together? How do algorithms direct our attention and thus influence our behaviour?
Digital technologies such as free apps and tools open up new aesthetic possibilities. In addition, new forms of access can be created via digital formats. How can barriers be removed so that participation in digital space can succeed? What technical knowledge do those producing theatre need to shape the digital-analogue present in theatrical terms together with children and young people? In order to tap into the potential of digitisation for theatre work and to shape these shifts in active fashion, a critical discourse about their effects on aesthetic theatre practice must be triggered, interdisciplinary collaborations established and structures given proper qualification.