University of Music and Theatre Munich
Technology, Performance and Society research unit
How do the technologies that surround us shape the ways we relate to each other? How are local and global power relations inscribed in technological innovation? How are different bodies implicated in, and affected by, machines, tools and gadgets?
These are some of the questions that are explored by the Technology, Performance and Society research unit (TecPerSoc) at the University of Music and Theatre Munich. Taking reflections on the performative nature of everyday life as a starting point, we experiment on the intersections of new media art, performance art, cultural theory and anthropological field research. Deconstructing, reshaping and rebuilding technological systems - both practically and theoretically – we investigate the material and political dimensions of high-tech culture. We reassemble obsolete computers, create embodied user interfaces, challenge surveillance systems or reshape our bodies as cyborgs. In this, artistic practice is approached as a medium to imagine, provoke and prototype new ways to live with technology that go beyond the often taken-for-granted techno-optimism of Global Northern consumer culture.
TecPerSoc is led by artist and cultural critic Prof. Dr. Dani Ploeger and coordinated by artist researcher Christy Westhovens.