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Dr. Matthew Causey

Fellow Emeritus (Drama)

 causeym@tcd.ie

 


Biography

Dr. Matthew Causey is currently Head of School of Creative Arts at TCD. He is Professor in Drama, College Fellow, and Director of the Arts Technology Research Laboratory. He is author of 'Theatre and Performance in Digital Culture: from simulation to embeddedness' (Routledge 2006). Recent publications include the essay 'Postdigital Performance' in 'Theatre Journal' (2017). He co-edited 'The Performing Subject in the Space of Technology: through the virtual towards the real' (Palgrave, 2015) which includes his chapter, 'The Right to be Forgotten and the Image-Crimes of Digital Culture'. He edited with Fintan Walsh 'Performance, Identity and the Neo-political Subject' (Routledge, 2014). His essay 'The Object of Desire of the Machine: the biopolitics of the posthuman' is anthologized in 'Resisting Biopolitics: philosophical, political and performative strategies' edited by Wilmer and Zukauskaite (Routledge, 2015). His theoretical writings on performance and techno-culture are published in 'Theatre Journal', 'Theatre Research Int'l', 'Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism', and 'TheatreForum' among others. In 2017 he was keynote speaker at the TaPRA (Theatre and Performance Research Association) Conference at Birkbeck University. In 2016 he keynoted at the 'Coimbra International Conference On the Virtual' at University of Coimbra, Department of Philosophy, Portugal. He was the keynote speaker at the Irish Museum of Modern Art's symposium on the artist John Gerrard. In 2015 he was keynote speaker at Ghent University's conference 'Does It Matter: Composite Bodies and Posthuman Prototypes in Contemporary Performing Arts' and the 'Digital Echoes' symposium at Coventry University. Funded by the HEA he created the Arts Technology Research Laboratory, which serves as an interdisciplinary postgraduate research centre in the area of art, technology and digital culture. He designed the Arts Strand of the HEA-funded Ireland-wide PhD in Digital Arts and Humanities which partners TCD, UCC, NUIM, NUIG and northern partners UU and QUB in a collaborative programme training researchers in new technologies, practices and theories of digital research. Dr. Causey is also a digital filmmaker and he has adapted, edited and directed three of Samuel Beckett's televisual works, 'Ghost Trio', 'Nacht und Träume' and ' but the clouds '. His film, 'Frank and Marie', was an official selection of both the Boston Irish Film Festival and Dublin's Darklight Digital Festival in 2004. As a musician he has recently produced two releases of original compositions, 'The Art of Living' and 'Obedientia Civium Urbis Felicitas' with his band Tujacques whose live performances included a spot at the Electric Picnic 2012. As a theatre-maker his performance work 'Tall Ships' was featured in the Dublin Fringe Festival 2014. Matthew's long career in theatre and performance, film and video stretches back to the seminal art period of the East Village and Soho in the 1970s and 80s. His original theatre works including 'Luminous Bodies', 'Paradise Regained', 'The Book of Ezekiel' and 'The Ecstasy of St. Zero, Retold' were performed throughout Soho during that time and were all chosen as 'Choices' in NYC's 'Village Voice'. The works were presented at such venues as the Envelope at the Performing Garage, the Open Space in Soho, and Soho Books. While working in the film industry in LA as an actor and editor he wrote/directed the experimental film 'Radio Word' (1983) featuring the machine-art provocateurs, Survival Research Laboratories. In the 1990s, after earning his PhD at Stanford University, he continued his work as an artist experimenting in new forms of computational and video art with his research group PTRL (Performance Technology Research Laboratory) at Georgia Tech where he was Asst Professor. Dr. Causey developed many intermedial works with PTRL including 'The Bacchae', 'Electricity (after Frankenstein)' and a production of 'Faust' was staged at Atlanta's 7 Stages.

Research Tags

  Cinema/Video   Continental philosophy   Critical theory, 20th century British and Irish fiction   Media Arts   THEATER-MAKING   Theatre/Film Criticism

Research Projects

 ATRL - Arts Technology Research Laboratory
 PhD in Digital Art and Humanities

Representations

Details Date
Editorial Board Member of Crossings: An Electronic Journal of Art and Technology. Editor, Mads Haahr. Trinity College Dublin. Current. 2006-2017
Editorial Board Member of International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media. Editor, Maria Chatzichristopoulou. Current. 2004-2017
Editorial Board Member of Theatre Research International. Editors, Christopher Balme, Brian Singleton. Previous.
Editorial Board Member of Contemporary Theatre Review. Editors, David Bradby and Maria Delgado. Routledge. Previous.

Memberships

Membership of Professional Institutions, Associations, Societies

Details Date From Date To
International Federation of Theatre Research (IFTR/FIRT) 1994 2018
American Society of Theatre Research 1994 2018
Irish Society for Theatre Research 2006 2018
Association of Theatre in Higher Education 1994 2018
Performance Studies International 1995 2018
Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA) 2007 2018
Causey, Matthew, 'The Earth as Data Farm for the Virtual World (the origin of the work of art in postdigital culture)' , TaPRA Conference , Birkbeck University, 20 April, 2017, TaPRA New Technologies Working Group, Invited Talk, PUBLISHED
Causey, Matthew, The Earth as Data Farm for the Virtual World: At the Origin of the Work of Art in Digital Culture, The Postdigital, Contributive Economy in Contemporary Art, Irish Museum of Modern Art, 19 December, 2016, ATRL/DIT, Invited Talk, PUBLISHED
Causey, Matthew , Encountering the Immaterial Body and the Incorporeal Event in Digital Art: Against the Virtual/Reality Distinction, Conference on the Virtual, Coimbra University, Portugal, 28 October, 2016, Philosophy Department of Coimbra University, Invited Talk, PUBLISHED  URL
Causey, Matthew, Postdigital Performance, Theatre Journal, 68, (3), 2016, p427 - 441, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  URL
Matthew Causey, Emma Meehan, Neill O'Dwyer, The Performing Subject in the Space of Technology: through the virtual toward the real, London, Palgrave, 2015, 1 - 242pp, Book, PUBLISHED  URL
The Object of Desire of Machine: The Biopolitics of the Posthuman in, editor(s)Steve Wilmer and Audrone Zukauskaite , Resisting Biopolitics: Philosophical, Political and Performative Strategies, London, Routledge, 2015, pp202 - 215, [Matthew Causey], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  URL
The Right to be Forgotten and the Image-Crimes of Digital Culture in, editor(s)Matthew Causey, Emma Meehan, Neill O'Dwyer , The Performing Subject in the Space of Technology: through the virtual toward the real, London, Palgrave, 2015, pp69 - 81, [Matthew Causey], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  URL
Causey, Matthew, The Right to be Forgotten and the Image-Crimes of Digital Culture (Keynote Presentation), Digital Echoes Symposium, Coventry University, 13 February, 2015, CDaRE The Centre for Dance Research, Invited Talk, PUBLISHED
Causey, Matthew, The Right to be Forgotten and the Image-Crimes of Digital Culture, (Keynote Presentation), Does It Matter? Composite Bodies and Posthuman Prototypes in Contemporary Performing Arts, University of Ghent, Belgium,, 17-19 March, 2015, Invited Talk, PUBLISHED
Causey, Matthew, The Object of Desire of the Machines, Rewind Film Festival, RUA RED, 7 November, 2015, Rua Red: South Dublin Arts Centre, Invited Talk, PUBLISHED
  

Page 1 of 10
Causey, Matthew, ''The Black Sun'', Samuel Beckett Theatre, TCD, 2002, -, Notes: [Multi-media, computer-aided, live performance.], Theatre Production, PUBLISHED
Causey, Matthew, ''The Apparatus'', Samuel Beckett Theatre, TCD, 2001, -, Notes: [Multi-media, computer-aided, live performance.], Theatre Production, PUBLISHED
Causey, Matthew, ''Electricity'', Performance Technology Research Laboratory, Atlanta, GA, 2000, -, Notes: [Director/Designer/New Media Artist for multi-media, computer-aided, live performance. ], Theatre Production, PUBLISHED
Causey, Matthew, ''The Bacchae'', 1997, -, Notes: [Director/Designer/New Media Artist. A co-production of Performance Technology Research Lab and Drama Tech. Multi-media, computer-aided, live performance. ], Theatre Production, PUBLISHED
Causey, Matthew, 'Death (Enrico IV: The Uncanny)', Stanford, CA, 1993, -, Theatre Production, PUBLISHED
Causey, Matthew, ''Laboratory of Hallucinations'', Stanford, CA, 1992, -, Theatre Production, PUBLISHED
Causey, Matthew, ''Kill The Dog' ', Stanford, CA, 1991, -, Theatre Production, PUBLISHED

  

Awards and Honours

Award Date
AHSS Benefaction Fund: Theatre (at the origin of the virtual) 2017
Provost's Visual and Performing Arts Fund: 'All the Young Punks' 2017
AHSS Benefaction Fund: Theatre (The Scratch of Authenticity) 2011
Trinity Long Room Hub Research Initiative Fund: Televisual Beckett (Abstract Machines) 2010
Provost's Fund for Visual and Performing Arts 2008
Provost's Fund for Visual and Performing Arts 2005
2004 Learning Innovation Project: 'New Media/New Theatre', Centre for Academic Practice 2004/5
2004 Provost's Fund for Visual and Performing Arts. Film Project. Trinity College Dublin 2004/5
2004 Official Selection of Boston Irish Film Festival, Frank and Marie, a film by M Causey 2004
2004 Official Selection of Darklight Digital Festival, Frank and Marie, a film by M Causey 2004
AHSS Benefaction Fund: Posthuman Performance 2002
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Program in the Humanities for School and College Educators: Modern Theatre with Herb Blau at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee) 1996
Whiting Fellowship at CalArts (declined) 1994
Stanford Humanities Centre Year Fellowship (declined) 1994
Stanford University Postgraduate Fellowship and Stipend 1990-4

Research Interests

Description Of Research Interests

My research explores the frontiers of the theory and practice of theatre and performance in digital culture. The strategy of the research is to articulate the cultural condition of digital societies, the social impact and philosophical problems of technologised institutional structures and the construction of identity in electronic communications. I innovate on the methods of digital art practice which includes an exchange with science and technology, engineering, computer science and art and I consider the manners in which that exchange fundamentally shifts the practices of each field. My book, 'Theatre and Performance in Digital Culture', edited collections, book chapters, journal publications and keynote presentations all explore that matrix. I designed the Arts Technology Research Laboratory on that model to embrace the synergies of the School of Creative Arts' performance and time-based disciplines to encourage the re-imagining of the arts in play with computational systems. My research is deeply engaged with the social issues surrounding digital culture and in some cases, examines the legal issues surrounding being in the space of technology such as the 'right to be forgotten' in Google search engines and the troubling impossibility of being forgotten in a digital system. I question how victims of trauma whose abuse has been electronically circulated can never be forgotten creating a ceaseless circulation of victimisation. I attempt to transfer that model of traumatic Internet identity to a grounding theory of digital culture and reflect on the manners in which performance practices are influenced. The number of citations of my writings, various keynote invitations and requests for publication indicates the influence my research is experiencing. Additionally, I pursue practice-based research as an inter-medial artist and digital filmmaker. I have pursued my practice-based training and research for many years as a professional theatre producer, director and writer in NYC during 1970s and 80s, and as film and video maker in Los Angeles in the 1980s and 1990s. My recent work includes two short films based on several of Samuel Beckett television plays, a collaborative stage adaptation of Beckett's 'Ill Seen Ill Said' and the release of two albums of original music.