There’s a reason why the art world struggles with the concept of performance art and its right to be considered “art.” The essence of performance art is ephemeral, intangible. You cannot predict, label, or dissect it, as it’s there one moment and gone the next. Performance art closes the gap (literally and figuratively) between artist and viewer, something unsettling for many.

But it doesn’t have to be. Performance artist Miranda July uses her field’s spontaneous, up-close, anything-goes spirit to foster intensely positive experiences of human connection among strangers, often with the help of technology. Her newest performance piece New Society will debut at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis on Oct. 30. and 31. It’s a unique variation on one of her main artistic themes: the possibility of real human connection in the digital age. July’s so not a luddite that you’ll actually need a smartphone to be engaged fully in her newest performance piece.

But before you go see July in a world premiere performance at the Walker, you should probably brush up on a few popular works in her artistic career. After all, it’s hard to give an artist’s contemporary work a fair assessment without knowing, even vaguely, what precedes it.  And since July’s a sculptor, screenwriter, author, actress, and director (whew, I’m winded!) I’ll lighten the research load and fill you in on what are, in my opinion, her hottest projects.

In 2013, July began her “We Think Alone” project, a themed compendium of nondescript emails sent by her fellow friends and artists at some point in their lives which she then sent again to the inboxes of participants around the world. The emails were about private, often mundane thoughts on fear, love, and money that float in and out of ordinary individuals’ inboxes. “Privacy, the art of it, is evolving. Radical self-exposure and classically manicured discretion can both be powerful, both be elegant. And email itself is changing, none of us use it exactly the same way we did ten years ago; in another ten years we might not use it at all,” July wrote on the project’s official website. The “We Think Alone” project is one expressions among others of July’s unique obsession with pointing technology’s existential shortfalls and triumphs, with turning an illness on its head and transforming it into a cure.

In 2012 Miu Miu, Prada’s designer child, launched “The Women’s Tales,” a series of eight short films made in partnership with high profile female directors. July was one of those directors and her short film “Somebody” packed an awkward yet

sincere punch of honesty about the ways we struggle to communicate as well as some very Wes Anderson-esque cinematography, all in 10 minutes and 15 seconds.

The film inspired an iPhone app July developed and installed at the Walker last August, also titled “Somebody,” that allows you to send messages to others app users who will, ostensibly, deliver them in person to your intended target. It’s a messenger pigeon app of sorts that  may come across as silly, pointless even. Then again, the Yo app exists. But if you actually take a second to imagine the unlikely ( and otherwise nearly impossible!) connections the “Somebody” app could instigate, it seems radical.  And that’s just what July’s is in her own, distinct way. She’s radical; radically compassionate and radically communicative in an oddly unassuming, sweet way.

July’s a rare bird. She’s wears both a critic’s and an optimist’s hat. If you’re cynical, you’re bound to hate her. If you’re an idealist, you’ll jive with her perspectives and process.That’s my prediction. Either way, July’s New Society is sure to be a unique, even striking experience with performance art that sets the tone for a Halloween night.