Coping with the (interactive) environment: The performative potential of interactivity

This article explores the performative implications of coping with interactive performance environments, and ways in which such environments may be considered to ‘make’ people. Performers often practice for long durations in information-intensive technologized immersive settings, which demand and develop a combination of spread attentiveness, deep awareness and fast response times. This particular combination of embodied, embedded, durational and attentionally rich experience may prime the brain’s neuroplasticity – the capacity to reorganize its structure and function by forming new neural connections. This is discussed in relation to movement practices, body and self-image, and debate about technogenesis – the idea that humans are defined by their coevolution with technologies. The article considers two interactive works, Garry Stewart’s Proximity (2012) made for Australian Dance Theatre (ADT), and Crosstalk (2014), a collaborative work by artist Simon Biggs, choreographer Sue Hawksley and composer Garth Paine.