Hologram Performance as Commemoration

• In Event: 023 - Regular Session. Popular Culture: Spaces, Places, and Scenes

Abstract

In this article, we explore the link between memory, authenticity, and performance by looking at the rise, in recent years, of "holographic" posthumous performance. Many major artists (from Michael Jackson to Whitney Houston, to Tupac Shakur) have been digitally "resurrected" and their avatars have "performed" on stage. We argue that these very few cases can be understood not only as a peculiar kind of performance, but as a specific type of memory-work that challenges the boundaries of performance and the centrality of biologic actors on the stage. In particular, discourses about authenticity shape the production, mediation, and reception of those holograms, and define in radical new ways the relationship between meaning structures, scripts, and the staging of the performance.

Authors

• Andrea Cossu, University of Trento

• Marta Mulas, University of Trento