I.

Introduction: In pursuit of the virtual performer

The nature of all performance includes the elements of time-based
experience and space as "stage". I use the term "stage" as a simple
reference point to describe the space in which a performer performs and
not as reference to the theatre. The nature of performance in the
computer age includes these elements of time and stage as space. A
simple definition of performance is: that which is feigned or pretended.
It is action. It is speech. It is anything performative. The nature of
the performer includes any entity who/which feigns, pretends, acts, and
speaks. So, it is natural to include non-human entities, such as robots,
cyborgs, and databases in this discussion of performance. Baudrillard
might describe performing and the performer as more real than real, so
real that they are virtual. "Of course we have a multitude of objective,
real proofs, but what does one do with historical reality in a system
which itself has become virtual?"(http://www.simulation.dk/articles/a24-
vivisecting_90s.html) New media's complex nature has influenced the
nature of performance to become something many don't consider
performance. Anything involving action, interaction, time, and space is
performance. Therefore, performing is both real and virtual, becoming
more real than real through the very nature of simulation. Performance
on and of the net includes everything from virtual actors (interactors)
interacting with real actors, Moos, Mud's, Mucks, Games, Chat groups,
telepresence, Database as performance. The performer is data. The
performer is virtual. The history of virtual performance begins with
interaction between the real and hyperreal in time-based experience in a
space referred to as the stage.

II.

Humans have romanced with the real since the beginning of our existence.
With cave drawings, petroglyphs and Egyptian hieroglyphs, ancient
civilizations marked stone with symbols and icons representing the world
around them and their beliefs about the world. And so, through the
centuries human bodies have invented new ways, new mediums to describe
the world around and inside them. Each medium used through the ages has
acted as a vehicle for the performer or describer. In the past 75 years
our romance with the real has become even more intense. We have seen the
most explosive and dynamic changes in performance as a direct result of
the invention of the vacuum tube, the transistor, and most recently the
silicon chip. Radio, sound effects and actors' voices performed images
on audiences' ears, exploring the medium to convey the ideas in the
scripts. With the advent of television, visual information created a way
to mimic reality and record reality. The family situation shows of the
1950's were a hyper reality, reflecting back to the public their own
"perfect" image. With the age of the computer, visual, aural, and text
are combined as mediums for the performer to describe and rescribe the
world around and within. What is real becomes virtual through the act of
performing. What does this mean in terms of the performer? It means
there is a new kind of performer, stage, and performance.

III.

The Early Years: Technology and body

According to Village Voice writer Cynthia Carr, John Jesurun's play,
"Deep Sleep" (1985), was one of the first performances to illustrate
Baudrillard's concept of the loss of the real or how virtual is more
real than the real. In "Deep Sleep", film projections of actors and live
actors argue over who is real or alive. "The youngest actor, a boy of
perhaps twelve (Michael Tighe) who responds with the most
conviction…is certain he's not a projection" (Cynthia Carr). The
presence of real actors and projected actors and the subsequent
interaction begins to warp the line between real and hyperreal. The
audience is forced to question their own perceptions of real.
Performance and computers have a somewhat recent past with the personal
computer's short history paving the way. One of the early crusaders of
performance art using computers was Joe Lowery. In 1983, in the piece
titled, "Discrete Packages", Lowery uses his newly acquired Atari 800
microcomputer to generate designs of some of the ideas and philosophies
explored within the text and structure of his performance. "(He) was
interested in the different metaphors society uses to view itself, and
ended up intertwining computers, performance, and Kabbalah…" (Sally
Banes). Lowery believed that the programming aspect of computers was a
metaphor for performing. Lowery says, "…the questions are basically
who's being programmed and how do you respond to the programming?"
(Sally Banes). Lowery was exploring issues that are still at the heart
of computer interaction.

IV.

The Recent Years: Virtual performers

More recently, the use of virtual performers can be seen in George
Coates' Performance Works. According to George Coates, "(The George
Coates Performance Works) produced a show called the 'Nowhere Band' that
included an inter-actor named Ralph who arrived on-stage via the
internet every night at 8:30 PM PST for a five week performance run -
This was the first distributed live performance ever to occur as part of
a regularly scheduled theater run. Audiences in our theater would see
Ralph blow into his pipes to sound a `C' note in Australia establishing
the musical key, as the Nowhere Band in San Francisco tuned their
instruments to his bagpipe for the first number played in the show. This
show premiered at our civic Center theater in San Francisco in 1994"
(http://www.georgecoates.org/who.html). The idea of space and real are
connected with the idea of a time-based experience. The relationship of
live characters is absolutely dependent on the interaction with the
virtual characters. George Coates takes these ideas of real and
hyperreal and completely mesmerizes audiences with the production of
"20/20 BLAKE: The Visions Of William Blake." George Coates describes the
performance, "at one point we had even hacked a way to make two SGI
graphics engines run simultaneous stereographic interactive animation
programs enabling audiences wearing polarized glasses to experience
stereo 3D illusions of volumetric space interacting in real time with
live actors on a stage. (This enabled, for example, a flock of birds to
appear to hover over the stage and audiences, swooping down to harass
the live actor, chasing the actor around the stage wherever the actor
chose to go - in real time)" (http://www.georgecoates.org/who.html).
Here Coates and his company of actors, technicians, and virtual images
are merged with the audience into a space created and controlled by the
computer and its operators. The definition of performer has changed. But
the presence of space and time are consistent common denominators in the
performance.

V.

Virtual Verbiage: Textual performance of Moos and Muds

Performance in real time made virtual is exactly the environment found
in Mooing. Moo stands for mud object oriented, which is a hybrid of Mud,
multi-user dimension. Mud is a text based virtual reality world. A moo
is an electronic "place" where people log onto a network or server and
talk simultaneously, electronically through the computer. In order to
Moo, one needs a way to telenet, i.e. a computer system at a university.
Mooing and Mudding are descendents of the computerized game "Dungeons
and Dragons". Participants can Moo by teleneting through the Internet
from a host computer to another host computer, which is the domain of
the Moo. Users can also access Moo's through the Internet, using a
client server program, such as "mutt" which will actually allow the user
to log on to several different Moo's at once
(http://www.cas.usf.edu/english/walker/spring/articles/art90s.html). As
in "Dungeons and Dragons", the participants can take on many personas in
one session and thus actually interact with themselves. This is truly
virtual performance. "Craggy Island" is "… a Lambda-based MOO, themed
around the Emmy Award-winning British Channel4 sitcom, 'Father Ted'.
'Craggy Island' itself sets to capture some of the atmosphere and
stunning scenery of Ireland, as well as the general inanity of its
administrative staff. Here you will find many things, some of which will
amaze you, others may just scare. There's online login and character
requests, links to other great 'Father Ted' sites, a guided tour of the
Island, archived mailing lists, and best of all, drink!"
(http://necro.mcc.ac.uk:6666/). The virtual creative performance
potential of Mooing is limited only by a person's imagination and
language skills and of course programming skills and access. The
popularity of Mooing is huge, with classes offered by distinguished
English professors, and departments specializing in Moo and Mud creative
writing. The result is a Mooing and Mudding frenzy across the nation and
across the university circuit. People take on personas, describe
themselves how they want to be perceived, accomplish tasks, and interact
with other participants. They can visit make believe places, interact
with 3-dimensional objects all through Mooing and Mudding.

VI.

Virtual Bodies: Robots, cyborgs, and artificial intelligence as
performers

The new 3-dimensional graphically represented self comes in the form of
robots, cyborgs, and artificial intelligence. After all aren't we the
real intelligence? Or are we the virtual intelligence? The intersection
of real and virtual is similar to the intersection between audience and
performer. It is precisely this intersection in time and space that Suzi
Gablik calls, "the key that moves art beyond the aesthetic mode."
Eduardo Kac, an artist with roots as a performance artist, is working
with this idea of the intersection. His work encompasses telepresence
and interactive robots. Most recently his project "UIRAPURU", a
combination of local network, remote network, virtual space, and real
space, was named one of the top three entries at the ICC
(InterCommunication Center, Tokyo, Japan) Biennale '99 exhibition
(http://www.ntticc.or.jp/special/biennale99/preface_e.html). Kac uses
the mythical and real Amazonian bird as a structure and vehicle for the
work. Kac says, "(his) version of the legend reinvents Uirapuru's dual
status as a real animal and a mythical creature through an experience
that is at once local and remote, virtual and physical. The flying
telerobotic fish is a blimp that can be controlled both through a local
interface and through the Web" (http://www.ekac.org/uirapuru.html).

For over 20 years Stelarc, an Australian based performer has been
working with robotics, artificial intelligence and their relationship
with the human body. "(Stelarc's) work explores and extends the concept
of the body and its relationship with technology through human/machine
interfaces incorporating the Internet and Web, sound, music, video and
computers" (http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/biog/biog.html).

From 1968-1970 Stelarc created what he calls "Multimedia Performances"
(http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/biog/biog.html). His romance with the body
and technology is evident in his subsequent work. From 1972 - 1975
Stelarc worked with "sensory deprivation events" suspending the body
with harnesses. By 1976, he was investigating the impact of artificial
intelligence on the body "real." Stelarc has recently been performing
interactively with the Internet. "While the body is under the control of
the flux of information streaming through the Net during these
performances, live images are uploaded and samples have been archived
for viewing" (http://www.stelarc.va.com.au). Stelarc's work is most
significant to all of the mutations and form performance has taken in
the past twenty years. His innovation and continued exploration moves
new media forward with each new project he envisions and executes.

VII.

Data Performer: The most true and most real performer on the virtual
stage

The most natural performers in cyber environments are databases and the
data itself. In her essay, "Will the Real Body Please Stand Up?"
Allucquere Rosanne Stone describes the nature of the cyber-experience."
The "data" in some of these virtual environments are people–3-D
representations of individuals in the cyberspace." Data can also
function as the stage or environment for performance. Data can also
bring time notions together, holding a performance together by its own
processing. In the book, "Technoromanticism: digital narrative, holoism,
and the romance of the real", Richard Coyne discusses the nature and
function of data in virtual reality. "(Performers) use computers to
represent space, as in computer-aided design, virtual reality, and
geographical information systems. Such systems employ databases in which
numerical and other attribute data based on some coordinate system or
other are stored, which can be manipulated according to the rules of
mathematics and geometry. The prospect of immersion in three-dimensional
virtual worlds captures the romantic imagination." The group Knowbotic
Research uses data environments to create simulated and network
experience for participants. Working for over 6 years in the field of
computers, research and art Knowbotic Research has collaborated with
other scientists and artists in VRML experience making. In 1996
Knowbotic Research's "SMDK Simulation Space Mosaic of mobile Datasounds"
brought performance into the definition of database as performer and
data as stage. Knowbotic describes this project as a complex self-
organizing system that is processed on, thus creating a new system for
the visitor. "The chaotic basic structure of SMDK, the self-organization
feature, the real-time composition of public sound material and its
fragmentation, the continuous visualization of (mathematical) processes
and the openness of the entire system to the outside world through data
networks represent a complexity that challenges the visitor to construct
his or her own orientation system, within an interactive database"
(http://www.t0.or.at/~krcf/smdk/smdk1.html).

David Rokeby is an artist working with computerized interactive sound
and video work. He uses data as "the real performing body" (Peggy
Phelan) and data processed on as a virtual experience provided through
computers. In a recent work, "Universal Translator", "the interface …
is a microphone with a micro video camera embedded in its head so that
the camera looks directly at the mouth from very close up. The sound of
the voice and video of the moving lips are captured by computers. These
sounds and images provide most of the content, and are used to control
most of the interactivity of the work. A computer monitor faces the
interactor and displays the processed mouth images"
(http://www.interlog.com/~drokeby/trans.html).

VIII.

Conclusion: The politics of virtual performance or virtually performing
in the future of the hyperreal

"… Today enters into the same domain of indeterminate, undefined
interpretations or into the principle of indeterminacy. And this not
only applies to the past, but also to the future as well as to the
present" (http://www.simulation.dk/articles/a24-vivisecting_90s.html).
Baudrillard's comment on history and the past can only point to the
future. And the future is marked by the ability to become what it will
become, real or not.

According to Peggy Phelan in her book, "Unmarked: The Politics of
Performance", "Performance art usually occurs in the suspension between
the 'real' physical matter of 'the performing body' and the psychic
experience of what is to be em-bodied. Like a rackety bridge swaying
under too much weight, performance keeps one anchor on the side of
psychic Real. Performance boldly and precariously declares that Being is
performed (and made temporarily visible) in that suspended in- between."
The "psychic experience" becomes synonymous with the virtual experience,
and the "performing body" is no longer synonymous with the human body.
The body is changing from that of the person to the body of the
computer. And at times the data particles of the information being acted
upon becomes the performing body. Cyberperformance has many different
characteristics from that of traditional performance. But, ultimately it
is still a time-based experience in some sort of space we can call the
stage or cyberspace. We are still in the Lacanian "Mirror Stage" in
which we use our virtual selves to perform actions, ideas, and language.
"A never-resolved assemblage of virtual and real (making) up the very
fabric of human subjectivity" (Geoffrey Batchen). The politics of
cyberperformance are embedded with data representing and unrepresenting
the world around and within us.

[This article originally appeared in Switch at http://switch.sjsu.edu]

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