Notes on the Developing Aesthetics of Digital Technology and its effects on Transmedial Disciplines

This paper draws upon the realms of both myth and neuro-science to investigate how developing digital technologies affect cross-disciplinary and transmedial practice: When Echo comes upon Narcissus then Echo's curse takes hold: she may not speak but only emote through the words of others. She tells Narcissus she loves him as an echo of his own words, which to him seems to come from his reflection (his curse is to believe that his reflection is real). This is a classic feedback-loop which neither can escape from. Echo is sound and Narcissus is image and their relevance is extant today as screen and performance forms are constantly changing. I will then examine current scientific studies around the energy of the gaze and the concept of entrainment (the property that enables pendulum clocks to automatically swing together in synchronicity). As the audience observe together, they like Echo and Narcissus are caught in feedback-loops which raises issues concerning the fragility of exchange and entrainment between the maker and audience. I wish to go on to examine if it is within this fragility that the two forces might coalesce and render something new of each-other.