170999 UE Media Aesthetics in Everyday Use (2022W)

Not only since the Corona pandemic have artists been dealing with theatrical forms of presentation and the creation of performative interaction with the audience in digital space. Nevertheless, these formats have experienced a strong growth, especially within the last two years. Theater institutions and artists have rediscovered the digital space for their forms of artistic expression, especially in order not to lose contact with the audience. In the course of this development, productions have emerged that are not only dedicated to the digital transmission of theater performances, but above all to the creation of productions specifically conceived for the digital space. This course follows on from the course "Theater in Digital Space" offered in the last two semesters, but attempts to deal with the phenomena in greater depth in terms of form, content and aesthetics, focusing on participation, inclusion and aesthetics.

In this course, three topics will be examined. The first topic deals with forms of audience participation that are realized in digital offerings. In this context, we will work out which forms these are and how they take place. As a second topic, accessibility plays a major role in discourses about digital theater works, because the often raised issue of accessibility is a question of perspective. The LV will explore the question of which forms of inclusion are considered in digital theater creation and which ones have not been tackled yet. And as a third major topic, the aesthetics of digital theater creation will be considered analytically. The analysis of analog theater performance lays the foundation for the study of theater. But what about the digital space? What descriptive criteria can be found there? And which additional tools are needed for the description? The course will deal with the interaction between theory and practice of these three major topics and work out their respective specifics in relation to theatrical creation in the digital space.

In this course, we will work on the three major thematic complexes of participation, inclusion and aesthetics in digital theater creation. In a first step, the theoretical background knowledge will be elaborated. In a second step, different forms of performing arts in the digital space will be looked at and analyzed based on these three focal points. The focus will be on questions such as: What forms of participation are practiced in digital theater? How is it made? How does it work? Where are the advantages and where are the disadvantages? What does inclusion mean for digital work? How does it manifest itself? And how does the aesthetic of theater work in digital space shape itself? How can it be described? Where do we need more descriptive tools? In this course, we want to give space to a deeper examination of forms of digital theater.