This thesis focuses on the contextualization of my artistic practice, which explores digital glitch as a disruptive force and an aesthetic treatment in the contemporary technological world. While the body of work draws on the methodology of glitch art, this paper attempts to relate the idea of glitch to a wider range of philosophical and artistic frameworks stemming from Lettrism, Situationist International, Punk, and Nihilism. The aim of this investigation of a digital disturbance through its categorization into natural, stimulated and assimilated glitch, is to facilitate an understanding of the glitch event as both something threatening and attractive, while it transitions from a spontaneous to a controlled process in a photoreal image. The passing of the destructive glitch from life to art is placed against the backdrop of the apocalypse, which one may imagine as a literal and metaphorical disaster in the physical world and value systems of western society. / vii, 113 leaves ; col. ill. ; 29 cm

This thesis examines the new theatrical form of cyberformance (live performance by remote players using internet technologies) and contextualises it within the broader fields of networked performance, digital performance and theatre. Poststructuralist theories that contest the binary distinction between reality and representation provide the analytical foundation for the thesis. A critical reflexive methodological approach is undertaken in order to highlight three themes. First, the essential qualities and criteria of cyberformance are identified, and illustrated with examples from the early 1990s to the present day. Second, two cyberformance groups – the Plaintext Players and Avatar Body Collision – and UpStage, a purpose-built application for cyberformance, are examined in more detailed case studies. Third, the specifics of the cyberformance audience are explored and commonalities are identified between theatre and online culture. In conclusion, this thesis suggests that theatre and the internet have much to offer each other in this current global state of transition, and that cyberformance offers one means by which to facilitate the incorporation of new technologies into our lives.