Videogames as digital audiovisual performance

Video games are an ideal medium for creating a live-cinema experience because of their potential for cinematic narrative and open structure. "Performing digital media' as opposed to 'performing with digital media' or using digital media in performance, means to play the media like a musical instrument as much as possible. This is to be able to control and finely nuance the audiovisual and kinetic data stream through live manipulation and interaction on stage. This is, in a sense, to grant the performance an immediacy that belies remediation. This paper looks at recent instances in which the media itself is being performed and a similar audiovisual contract to that of cinema is being entered to by an audience. Thus, the performance or live event itself becomes a product of media technologies yet is indistinctly unified with them.