Sitting with it: Liveness and embodiment

In this chapter I discuss the Back to Back theatre production The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes (2019). I argue the performance teaches its audience to feel sceptical about Artificial Intelligence and the possibility of a future where human life is without use. Through affects of everydayness, the performance also reminds viewers that human life is set to a time we cannot control. The pace and length of life is the mortal coil with which we live. Other affects created by the performance include moving back and forward in time and feelings of shame, anger and uncertainty. In creating a space to think through these affects I discuss Spinoza, Deleuze and Guattari and Coleman's work on affect in order to better understand the significance of the embodied changes made by live theatre.