Reframing Terrestrial Agency through Digitally Augmented Aesthetics Across Theatre and Installation Art

Abstract Framed by theories of Bruno Latour, Elizabeth Grosz, and Una Chaudhuri, the article surveys recent theatre and installation artwork which explores humanity’s enmeshed relationships with terrestrial ecologies that are gaining vital importance in the age of global warming. The selection of works has been guided by their use of innovative digitally augmented embodied aesthetic approaches that reformulate concepts of time, space, and agency in order to advocate an expanded concept of humanity’s existence and performance within terrestrial systems. Intensifying extreme events such as severe fires and floods threaten our lifeworlds at unprecedented scales. To survive, we must fundamentally reshape our understanding of the processes at play and rehearse new forms of addressing them. The article speculates how the innovative aesthetics discussed may be applied to expand our sensorial and cognitive engagement with the enveloping nature of terrestrial agency and its amplifying material performance – shifting from observation of its impact to an immersive exploration of our integrated constitution and dynamic interaction. It investigates how the theatrical medium’s aesthetic strengths (acting within time, embodied performance, and affective co-presence) may be leveraged, and – conversely – how its drawbacks (privileging of the human) could be offset in application to full-body immersive interactive AI-based 3D visualisation. Hence, this article considers how theatrical aesthetics can be applied to develop new, digitally augmented creative methodologies that address fundamental challenges posed by the climate emergency.