This is now, this is live

We are Zoo Indigo, a Nottingham based performance company, experimenting with innovative new technology and the virtual performer to create authentic presence on the arena of illusion, the stage. As part of our research we recently took the exploration of the virtual performer further, and explored the virtual “non-performer”, the infants in Under the Covers. The audience’s – and the performers’ – response to the digital infants is always intense. The babies are there with us, live in the theatre space, their presence is felt constantly as we observe the blurry CCTV style live video footage, and the audience is drawn into their spaces further through the interactivity created with live sound connections. In this paper we are going to introduce the different elements that contribute to create this authentic, “real-life” presence, flooding into the performance situation of pretence. The paper furthermore investigates if new technology and virtual presence in performance comments, confirms or contradicts current theories of posthumanism, and whether, as part of the posthuman condition, a virtual version of a performer – or the digitalised presence of any person - can have an authentic presence at the remote location, can be as real, or even more real, than a live body of flesh and blood.