The body as (digital) archive: documenting, re-enacting and teaching digital interactive and immersive performance

Abstract

In digital interactive and immersive performance, the body of the audience member is the locus of both meaning-making (through embodied, sensory operations) and meaning itself (through the affective experience of self as hybrid, open and interconnected). This article draws on André Lepecki’s concept of ‘will to archive’ to argue that the body can also be understood as the fundamental archive of these performances. Utilising the case-study of a work by the author, Slow Down (You Move Too Fast), this article explores the implications of ‘body as archive’ for the creation, archiving and re-presentation of this form of performance.