Abstract
How does the use of live technologies in theatrical performance exemplify our own positioning in a post-industrial technologically based society? Further, how does this in turn explain some of the concerns of the postmodernists? These are the buzzing thoughts that plague an individual's or a society's mind at large when considering the topic on ?Postmodernism and its impact on theatre'. Postmodern cinema is wealthy in intertextual references, and is often self-reflexive. However, the same can be said of theatre performances that utilize the newly designed live technologies. The use of technology enables theatre to broaden its horizon of communicating in other ways other than through the spoken text on stage. These references can therefore be perceived through mediums such as visuals and sound. As the composer Philip Glass rightly declared that ?technology is a lot of things.' It is an indisputable fact that the grand piano is a masterpiece of technology. Douglas Coupland (1995) also stated that Language by itself is such a unique technology. Indeed, technology can mean many things and postmodernism encourages the fusion and juxtaposition of many disciplines such as film, music, and the time-based medium of video art. As Auslander (1999:24) observed, that live performance more often than ever, incorporates mediatization such that the live event itself is a product of a technological advancement. This highlights the inevitable positioning of the performer and of ourselves as the product and the object of the newly built technologies being used to its fullest. In this context, humans are therefore being referred to as cyborgs in our post-industrial and technologically based society.
