Authenticity within digital scenography: a new materialist approach to media technology within performance design

The notion of authenticity is experiencing a resurgence within theatre and performance. With its myriad of associations – ‘the original’, ‘the real’, ‘truthful’, ‘genuine’, ‘believable’, ‘emotionally resonant’ – authenticity is a key component in engaging audiences with live performance (Schultze 2017). Despite an increasing body of research considering the authenticity of performance, performer and audience experience (Radbourne, Johanson, Glow & White 2009; Walmsley 2013; Au, Ho & Chan 2016; Aykol, Aksatan & İpek 2017), little discussion has been had on authenticity in the context of digital scenography.

Digital scenography decentres traditional performance’s claim to authenticity through the destabilisation of place, space, body, voice and time. As the discourse on digital scenography continues to evolve (O’Dwyer 2021), a new framework is essential to understand authenticity in this context; not only audience perceptions of authenticity, but crucially how digital scenography may lay claim to its own authenticity. Building on the concepts of New Media Dramaturgy (Eckersall, Grehan and Scheer 2017) and new materialism (namely Barad’s (2003) distributed agency and Bennet’s (2010) “thing-power”), I argue that in accepting the agency of the inorganic in digital scenography, we must now ask: can vision technology possess authenticity, and what impact could this attitude have on its use within performance?

This presentation will examine authenticity’s role within cultural, performance and audience fields to understand complex issues of creation and perception, then break down its three core constructs – truthfulness, believability, and emotional engagement – for application in scenographic practice. I propose a new Authenticity Framework as a method of producing, analysing and studying authenticity within digital scenographies. This paper will present new data from mixed-methods research into Australian digital performances throughout 2021. The results from audience research and creative practitioner interviews will be shared to strengthen the proposed Framework, and to begin an earnest conversation on the authenticity of digital scenography.