No Longer Themselves. Framing Digitally Enabled Posthumous 'Performance'

Article published in the «Cinema Journal» — 2010 — Vol. 49 — No. 4 (Summer) — pp. 46-70.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?