H42.2770-001 Lec 4 Credits
Instructor(s): Christopher McGahan
Performance and Technology
Chris McGahan
H42.2770-001 (Albert #74537)
Monday - Wednesday 9:30 am – 12:15 pm, 4 points
Classroom 613
The course will serve as an overview of some of the most important critical and theoretical perspectives on the implications of
the incorporation of new media technologies into genres of performance like music, theater, performance art, and dance.
Among the issues we will address are the status of ‘liveness’ and immediacy in performance, the representation of the body in
the age of ‘biocybernetic’ reproduction, and the role of cultural identity in both technological innovation and critique of the
technoculture. Sites to be investigated include a work by the Wooster Group, certain sonic explorations in hip hop and trip
hop, and various Web-based performance art experiments.
Chris McGahan has a Master’s degree from the University of Toronto in Comparative Literature and a Ph.D. from NYU in Performance
Studies. He is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Yeshiva University. His revised dissertation, entitled Racing Cybercultures:
Minoritarian Art and Cultural Politics on the Internet, will be published by Routledge. His research interests include digital cultures and aesthetics,
racial politics in the U.S. and Europe, contemporary fiction, and the re-packaging of national identities in the era of globalization.
