IM-Medea: posthumansim and remediation in music theatre

This thesis is the part of a practice-based research on experimental music theatre. It investigates the theoretical notions of posthumanism, cybernetics and remediation, when practically applied on new music theatre. The research aims to address questions such as: “Which theoretical principles of cybernetics and posthumanism could contribute to the compositional practice of new music theatre?” and “Which tools of interactive art and immersive creative practices could be employed for the making of new music theatre?”. The research took place in the period between October 2014 and September 2018 and resulted in this thesis, which is divided into two parts. The first part is an introduction to the theoretical context of this research. It lays out the intentions and rationale of the project; it presents the research questions with the methodology used to address these questions. Furthermore, it analyses the theatre play upon which the practical work was based: Heiner Müller’s Despoiled Shore Medea Material Landscape with Argonauts. The second part is essentially the presentation of the practical works (i.e. experiments and performances). These works aim to embody the intentions, theory and methodology of the first part. The second part closes with conclusions and recommendations for further research in this field. This practice-based research is focused on creating new immersive music theatre experiences, involving novel interactive and cybernetic methods between music, technical system, performers and audiences. Its substantial original contribution to knowledge is in the development of a series of methods for devising cybernetic and ecosystemic music theatre performances based on behavioural interactions between performers, audience and technology. Through the new aesthetic and dramaturgical possibilities that emerge from these works, the research contributes a theoretical understanding of the phenomenological and experiential aspects of these interactions. It is a generative type of performance orchestrated by computational and interactive processes, in which the author ceases to be the composer exclusively. The research investigates the new dynamic relationships established between performers, audience and technology in this new performance context. In addition, the theoretical contextualisation situates this type of practice in the wider aesthetic and philosophical milieu.