Il corpo performático come interfaccia organica nel teatro e nel cinema

In this essay, the focus lies on the role of the performatic body of actors and actresses as a mediation and intermediation device in contemporary theatrical and cinematographic forms in which the performer has to manage the complex relationship of translation with digital content. The aim is to investigate whether and to what extent (and form) the performers’ authorship can be considered prominent in the production and implementation of digital figures. In the case studies addressed, we will attempt to illustrate the extent to which the body, conceived as an organic interface, becomes a bridge and threshold of semiosis, a semiotic instance capable of connecting two realities, the factual and the virtual, revealing the very condition of eccentricity of human corporeality. Frequently in the new forms of performance, rather than the technological devices taking on the function of interfaces, it is human corporeality that offers itself as a form of mediation with digital alterity. In such instances, the interaction with technological devices leads the performer’s body to a full-blown “mutation” – triggered by the transformation of socio-cultural models that the new communication technologies are bringing about – that requires the spectators (as well as the actors themselves) to adopt new semio-cognitive paradigms, and not only. In fact, physiological stimuli are also intensifying, thus offering us semioticians the opportunity to further extreme reflections such as those on the posthuman condition. What emerges is a post-organic conception of the actor as a product of a technological corporealization and a technologized corporeality inviting the spectator to new forms of empathic identification.