Joseph DeLappe

HEAD SHOT! Per­for­ma­tive Inter­ven­tions in Mixed Realities

Joseph DeLappe

Abstract: Joseph DeLappe will con­tex­tu­al­ize an approach to cre­ative activ­i­ties in com­puter games as loca­tions for inter­ven­tion­ist per­for­mances and/or sites for data extrac­tion for the cre­ation of arti­facts. DeLappe’s pre­sen­ta­tion will focus on sev­eral of his most recent projects engag­ing in activist ori­ented per­for­mance and inter­net-based art projects. He will as well dis­cuss dead-in-iraq, 2006–2011, his 2008 project, The Salt Satya­graha Online, Gandhi’s March to Dandi in Sec­ond Life, Cha­troulette: Dis­ci­pline and Pun­ish, 2011 and Tal­iban Hands, 2012, among oth­ers.

Bio: Joseph DeLappe is a Pro­fes­sor of the Depart­ment of Art at the Uni­ver­sity of Nevada where he directs the Dig­i­tal Media pro­gram. He has worked with elec­tronic and new media since 1983, in online gam­ing per­for­mance and electro­mechan­i­cal instal­la­tion. Through descrip­tion and analy­sis, DeLappe con­tex­tu­al­ized an approach to cre­ative activ­i­ties in com­puter games and online com­mu­ni­ties as loca­tions for inter­ven­tion­ist per­for­mances and/or sites for data extrac­tion for the cre­ation of arti­facts. He traced a his­tory of per­for­ma­tive agency in com­puter games start­ing in 1997 when he first engaged with cre­at­ing abstract draw­ings while play­ing “first per­son shoot­ers” with an Apple mouse recon­fig­ured as a draw­ing tool. Since then, he has engaged in a series of per­for­mances in online shooter games using the in game text chat that com­bine aspects of polit­i­cal protest, his­tor­i­cal reen­act­ment, and street the­ater.
http://www.delappe.net
http://www.youtube.com/user/delappe