Perception in the digital age: Analysing aesthetic awareness of changing modes of perception

Abstract

This thesis discusses the way human sense perception is affected by digital technology. Following Maurice Merleau-Ponty, the human body is considered to be fundamental to perception. In this age, the human body and its senses can no longer evade the influence of technology; however, digital technology has become elusive and its role in the processes of perception often goes unnoticed. An aesthetic framework has the critical potential to construct a self-reflexive mode of perception in which the subject becomes aware of the processes of perception. Several performances are analysed to illustrate how intermediality as a representational strategy can make visible the conditioning of perception through digital technologies.