Body, Territory and Networked Performance

Abstract

This text connects two networked performance art pieces with an approach that conceives the internet as a territory and an uncertain technology. Using a theo­retical framework grounded in body studies and debates about spatiality and ter­ ritoriality, an analytical model was developed that conceives the internet as an assemblage, a continuum and a territory that generates complex experiences. We propose that the boundaries of digital territory are shaped based on the tensions between users’ experiences and actions, the dynamics of platforms managed by companies or institutions, and the characteristics of networked technologies. Un­ like the conception of the internet as an abstract intangible space, this article ar­ gues that what is experienced in the digital territory is not simply a metaphorical extension of reality but rather a process in which bodies and the infrastructures that characterise the internet interact. From an artistic and interdisciplinary per­ spective, we believe this approach can expand the conceptual and analytical tools in order to understand the processes through which bodies and subjectivities are shaped and transformed in the context of digital culture.