Digital Performances

Abstract

Starting from Austin’s theory of speech acts and the difference that is established at the meta-linguistic level between two types of utterance: performative and constative, the authors, from the point of view of media philosophy, claim that in the digital universe, where linguistic and every other expression is transposed by the media, every interaction, being a media creation and therefore without foundations in reality, is performative. Recognizing digitization, i.e. the actions and procedures that confirm it through interaction, as economically based and therefore the entire digital space as bound to the ruling capitalist socio-economic paradigm, the authors questioning whether is enough to claim that the performativity of digital devices and algorithmic structure represent, without distinction, a necessary and sufficient condition for overall digital performativity? That is, if all interactions in the digital world were reduced exclusively to logical operations, there would be no “symbolic surplus” that makes language to be a language and art to be an art, regardless of their material basis. The authors conclude that digital culture establishes a new dystopian line of cultural development, which (in the considered case) finds its manifestation in digital performances. Mentioned form has its origin in a particular software culture as an anti-cultural deviation of digital culture. Digital performances, viewed from that point, are understood as non-performances, or entities that exist only in their connection to performances, which, again, can never become.