Teorie e pratiche della presenza nella plenitudine digitale. Il caso di Fake Folk

In the current «digital plenitude», a media condition of perpetual tension between catharsis and flux, originality and remix, spontaneity and procedurality created by the dissolution of the modernist paradigm, forms of mass culture and sociality are largely configured around autonomous and centerless «communities of taste» (Bolter, 2019). Within this ecosystem of decentralized products and practices, I have defined «presence media» as a scholarly perspective on those devices designed to modulate the state of physical and social presence through procedures of departure (being-there) and arrival (it is here), transparent and opaque uses of the medium (Gatti 2019). This article aims to analyze the creative, heuristic, and social potential of media interfaces in shaping individual and collective states of presence by presenting the first advancement of the arts-based research project called Fake folk. Starting from a theoretical survey on presence media that interweaves the cognitive approach with the media archaeological approach, the article investigates the first phases of conception and staging of Fake Folk by reasoning on the relationship between design goals (the technical-material conditions and the “procedural” objectives in the visual and media design work of the project) and performative practices (the dramaturgical, aesthetic and experiential strings activated during the performance). In particular, the role of the augmented reality interfaces conceived, programmed and employed during the first study presented in Rome in October 2020 will be analyzed and discussed.