“I Do Not See the [Technology] Hidden in the Forest”: In the Loop of Performance Documentation, Reenactment, and Digital Reality

peer-reviewed article

Małgorzata Dancewicz-Pawlik

malgorzata.dancewicz-pawlik@uwr.edu.pl
University of Wrocław (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4753-3464

Abstract

This article analyses aspects of performance art such as documenting, reenactments, blockchain-minted performance, and bio performativity. It is argued that while technology has always been implicitly inscribed in performance art, recent developments in large-language-model algorithms and virtual reality have brought these issues back into focus, enabling their effective application. In a time of deepened mediatization of everyday life, the question of documentations and reenactments refers us to the significance of corporeality in performance. In her analysis of the examples presented, the author returns to the assumptions of unmarked bodily presence in the context of digital performance ontology and points out new technologies as an interface between the presence and absence of the body in digital performances. She argues that in today’s world, the foundation of performance is the digitally conditioned dynamic tension between the body’s presence and absence.


Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Keywords:

performance documentation, reenactment, liveness, bioart, VR, MR, blockchain art

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Published
2026-06-16

Cited by

Dancewicz-Pawlik, M. (2026) “‘I Do Not See the [Technology] Hidden in the Forest’: In the Loop of Performance Documentation, Reenactment, and Digital Reality”, Pamiętnik Teatralny, 75(2), pp. 119–141. doi: 10.36744/pt.2933.

Authors

Małgorzata Dancewicz-Pawlik 
malgorzata.dancewicz-pawlik@uwr.edu.pl
University of Wrocław Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4753-3464

Małgorzata Dancewicz-Pawlik - Assistant Professor at the Department of Cultural Studies, University of Wrocław. A graduate of the Institute of Audiovisual Arts, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, she combines research on new media art, focused on art&science, liveness, and new technologies in art, with experimental artistic practice in audiovisual performance art. She is the Chief Curator of the Intermediale Festival (wwwintermediale.com) and Co-creator of Inire duo (www.inire.net). She has carried out eye-tracking experiments at the Department of Graphic Design, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities and at Digital Humanities Lab, at Institute of Library and Information Science University of Wrocław. She teaches and cooperates also with The Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław.



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