No Longer Themselves?: Framing Digitally Enabled Posthumous “Performance”

Abstract

Screen performances are always technologically mediated, recorded in fragments, and recomposed, usually to create a coherent character. But performances can also be created after an actor’s death by digitally grafting an image of his or her face onto a body double or otherwise recontextualizing elements of the actor’s work. To what extent do digitally enabled posthumous “performances” represent a transformation, violation, or continuation of our conceptions of screen acting and performer presence?