Guiding design with approaches to masked performance

This paper reinterprets practical approaches to masked performance to articulate design activities that make use of performances and embodied artefacts. In particular, the paper relies on examples from design research to explore the application of performance work based on ‘neutrality’, expressivity and ‘incompleteness’, which have been developed in theatre to devise performances with ‘neutral’, ‘characterised’ and ‘larval’ masks.A more general argument in the paper is that the project of applying the performing arts into interaction design can be usefully extended beyond the boundaries that have so far characterised such applications. These have been limited to the direct staging of the performances which are meant to provide the evidence for design inquiries. Instead, design activities can proceed by working in a more indirect way, by researching variations of the achieved performances, and by using multiple performance genres, including stylised performances and mask work.