Quels rôles pour le spectateur à l’ère numérique?

Lou Gargouri

By Simon Hagemann and Izabella Pluta
Lausanne, Switzerland: Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes. 211 pp.

Reviewed by Lou Gargouri*

First a word about the two authors. Simon Hagemann is an Associate Professor of Communication at the Université de Lorraine. His work focuses on the intersections of theatre, video games, history, and media innovation. Izabella Pluta, a theatre critic and translator, is an independent researcher affiliated with the Centre d’études théâtrales at the Université de Lausanne. She co-edits Critiques, a journal dedicated to digital performance.

In their book Quels rôles pour le spectateur à l’ère numérique ?, Hagemann and Pluta offer in French a methodical exploration of the evolving relationship between audiences and live performance in the digital age.^[1] This volume joins a growing corpus of work focused on technology and performance, extending reflections found in foundational works like Steve Dixon’s Digital Performance (2007) and Quebec professor Josette Féral’s more recent La vidéo en scène (2022).

Structured in nine chapters, their study ranges from terminological clarification to speculative futures involving artificial intelligence. The framework enables the authors to develop an in-depth analysis of emerging spectatorial postures shaped by digital technology.

Their first chapter – “A Critical Genealogy of the Spectator and Its Metamorphoses” — undertakes an inquiry into how audiences are labeled and understood. Drawing from the work of Christian Ruby and Patrice Pavis, the authors unpack the implications of terms such as “spectator,” “public,” “audience,” “participant,” “spect-actor” (Boal), and “experimenter.” As they emphasize, “the important thing is not the word used, but what its use implies” (30). This lexicon proves crucial for interpreting the shifting modes of theatrical reception.

They also trace the evolution of the stage-audience dynamic, from ancient civic theatre and medieval liturgical drama, to the bourgeois theatre’s disciplinarian gaze (Bennett), and the radical reengagement of the historical avant-gardes (Dadaism, Futurism, Constructivism). These genealogies underline that today’s concerns with audience engagement are rooted in long-standing debates around the role of the public in performance.

In the chapter called “The Digital Turn and Sensory Implications”they contextualize the rise of a “digital society” and its implications for theatre. Post-humanism and trans-humanism are introduced as conceptual backdrops for the evolving status of the spectator, with reference to Rosi Braidotti, N. Katherine Hayles, and Donna Haraway. These frameworks help articulate how digital technologies challenge human exceptionalism and reshape performance ontology.

One of the book’s most original contributions appears in a chapter called “Au royaume des sens,” which investigates how digital devices engage the five senses. Referencing Marshall McLuhan’s theory of “technological extensions of man” and Paul Virilio’s notion of “visionics” , the authors analyze how technological performance reconfigures perception. Examples from CREW (Belgium), Éric Joris’s VR projects, and INVIVO’s sound installations illustrate what they call a “renewal of perception” (p. 97), extending well beyond traditional audio-visual registers.

The heart of the book presents a compelling typology of three emerging figures:

Le spectateur-immersant (Chapter 5) who is immersed in artificially constructed environments via VR. Building on Catherine Bouko’s three-tiered model of immersion and Doris Kolesch’s idea of a “dynamic of fluctuation”. The authors analyze works like Brainwaves (RGB Project, 2021, Switzerland) and Symphony of a Missing Room (Lundahl & Seitl, UK, 2014–2017).
Le spectateur-interacteur (Chapter 6) directly intervenes in the performance. Drawing a distinction between “interaction” and “interactivity” as defined by Pavis, the authors also refer to Steve Dixon’s typology. Notable case studies include Epizoo (1994) and Protomembrana (2006) by Marcel·lí Antúnez Roca, both of which probe questions of autonomy and agency.
Le spectateur-joueur (Chapter 7) is one who participates through gamified structures. Drawing on Johan Huizinga and Roger Caillois, the authors examine projects like Best Before (Rimini Protokoll, 2010) and Yet Another World (Extraleben, 2012), framing them through Christian Rakow’s concept of “Game-Theatre.”

What distinguishes this typology is not only its clarity but its interdisciplinary reach—engaging theatre studies, media theory, cognitive science, and ludology. The analysis convincingly demonstrates how digital theatre invents new forms of embodied, participatory presence.

Beyond mapping technologies, Hagemann and Pluta critically address their socio-political implications. Chapter 8 explores whether interactivity fosters emancipation or reproduces neo-liberal logics. Echoing Jacques Rancière’s Le spectateur émancipé and Olivier Neveux’s Politiques du spectateur, the authors challenge the idea that participation equals liberation.

Following Adam Alston, they suggest that participatory theatre may reward entrepreneurial spectatorship, echoing dominant economic ideologies. However, performances like To Like or Not To Like (Interrobang, 2015) or Regiodrom (Klaus Gehre, 2013) demonstrate how digital tools can expose surveillance, data manipulation, and contemporary power structures.

Geographically, the examples range across Germany, Denmark, Belgium, France and Switzerland, with sustained attention to projects by Or Normes and Yan Duyvendak. This breadth affirms the vitality and diversity of European digital theatre traditions.

The final chapter turns to AI and machine spectatorship. Examining dSimon (Simon Senn and Tammara Leites) and La vallée de l’étrange (Stefan Kaegi), the authors question what it means to perform for or with artificial agents. Masahiro Mori’s “uncanny valley” theory proves useful here, as the affective dynamics of theatre collide with synthetic presence.

Robotic performers like those in Sayonara (Oriza Hirata) or Dancer #3 (Kris Verdonck) suggest that theatre may not only represent the posthuman, but embody it.

Thanks to its conceptual clarity, breadth of examples, and critical engagement, Quels rôles pour le spectateur à l’ère numérique ? establishes itself as a landmark text. The book strikes a careful balance between analytical rigor and accessibility, making it valuable for scholars, artists, and students alike.

Hagemann and Pluta avoid technological determinism, instead presenting theatre as a laboratory for interrogating embodiment, collectivity, and attention in an age of mediation. Far from threatening theatre’s core, digital performance—when critically understood—emerges as a site of aesthetic, political, and ethical experimentation.

Endnote

^[1] Simon Hagemann is also the author of Penser les médias au théâtre (Harmattan, 2013). In this book, he has already analyzed the relationships between theatre and media from the historical avant-gardes to contemporary scenes.

Bibliography

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*Lou Gargouri is a theatre practitioner and PhD candidate in French literature and theatre at the University of Chicago. Her research focuses on francophone theatre, political performance, and feminist solo work.

This work is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution International License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

Endnote

Bibliography

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