TECHNOPARTICIPATION: Intermeshing performative pedagogy and interruption

Arguing for the positive disruptive nature of interruption, this article concentrates on my current performative and pedagogic usage of Skype in order to promote the positive aspects of interruptive elements within performative pedagogy. Referring to technoparticipation, this article explains how teaching and learning activities that combine performance, participation, and technology within the learning environment can be punctuated with varying degrees of interruption that are structurally engineered into their framework. This practice as research is supported by a Loughborough University Teaching Innovation Award and draws together discussions from within Performance Studies and the ever-growing discipline of E-learning. Skype as interruption is addressed in terms of both theory and practice in order to argue that its interruptive capacities are useful in unpacking key concepts relating to the terms ‘embodiment’ and ‘disembodiment’,‘virtuality’ and ‘physicality’, and ‘absence’ and ‘presence’ amongst others. This article focuses on an instance of 'technoparticipation' practice that took place in Summer 2015 at University College Cork. The project was put forward as prime evidence of how technology and the operations of interruption can collectively be used to further understand the aforementioned concepts. The writing that follows explains how the write-up preceding, during and post event at UCC relates to a three-stage teaching process. This process - 'Anticipation, Action, and Analysis' – was designed as an extension to an existing model of reflective practice (Rolfe 2001).