Radiator and Digital Cultures Symposium on Performance, Dance, and Technology Art

Friday, December 2 Arkwright Lecture Theatre, 10am-6:30pm

10:oo –13:oo Panel 1 City Performance – Performance in the Wild –Site Specificity –Audience Interaction

This panel explores the manner in which performers are using technology to interface with the cityscape as a means of generating a new performance frame in which to examine aspects of 'liveness', Improvisation in a non-controllable, dynamic environment, interaction with coincidental audiences and passers-by, etc.

speakers include: Simon Will (Gob Squad), Michelle Teran, Stefan Kaegi (Rimini Protokoll), Matt Adamas (Blast Theory)

14:oo –16:oo Panel 2 The local and the global: Movement, Digitalization, Transmission

An examination of current performance and media practices in non-Western and Western regions

The deployment and use of new technologies

Traditions and technological transculture

Internet and interaction, travel and co-production/collaborative culture methods

Speakers: Sally Jane Norman (Culture Lab, Newcastle), Sher Doruff (Amsterdam), Thecla Schiphorst (Vancouver), Margarita Bali (Buenos Aires) & DC Lab participants

Chaired by: Keiko Courdy (Paris/Kyoto)

16:30 –18:30 Panel 3 - Overcoming Distance

Remote Connections – Network as stage - Telematic Techniques in Performance - Streaming media - New wireless initiatives

Telematics have been used by artists and performers over the last decades; the question of whether a performance is "real", "virtual" or "mediated" is no longer the burning issue.

As the technologies get increasingly refined, real time seems far from an impossible goal. Telematics open up possibilities for global events with global audiences thus challenging not only common notions of live performance as a social gathering, but also the nature of the frame.

What alternatives are there to watching a streamed performance alone at home on your computer? What opportunities do telematics offer and what are the practical pitfalls? How much is the new technology being embraced? How do you get the world seated at a global performance? This panel will feature recent examples of telematic practice and streaming performance and will look at the future developments and obstacles that practitioners will have to negotiate.

Speakers include: John Mitchell (Arizona), Sita Popat (Leeds), Heath Bunting (Bristol), Adam Hyde (Radioqualia), Rachel Jacobs (Nottingham), Hellen Sky (Melbourne)

Chaired by Sue Thomas, author of "Hello World: Travels in Virtuality"

Saturday, December 3

10:oo –13:oo Panel 4 Capturing Dance / Dance Software-culture / Dance and Science:

Visualization Technology, Wearable and Pervasive Computing in Dance and Interactive Design

An examination of current practices in the dance and science areas, models of collaborations, and new research approaches.

Particular emphasis on research in motion capturing and graphic animation, interactive system design, real time processing/improvisation systems,

wearable computing and wearable fabric design, documentation of dance, new software for dancers.

Speakers include: DC Lab participants, Simon Biggs/Sue Hawksely (Sheffield), Marlon Barrios Solano (Venezuela/New York), Ghislaine Boddington (Future Physical) Igor Stromajer (Ljubljana), Chris Salter (Montréal), Thomas Dumke (Dresden).

Chaired by : Kirk Woolford

Panel 5 Lunch Forum 12:00 - 13:30

Private View - Arts Council England and BBC Artists' Commission

Speakers: Nina Pope & Karen Guthrie, Simon Pope -- Chaired by Sarah Cooke

14:oo - 16:oo Panel 6 A Description of the World as Though it was a Beautiful Place

The Play With Augmented Reality - Mixed reality - Gaming structures as performance work

This panel takes the everyday world as a blank canvas on which to paint another picture. By augmenting reality and bleeding fiction into day to day life, normality is redefined, meaning is layered over the banal and the wheel is somewhat reinvented. Once again, the space that we thought we knew is presented as a stage on which a different narrative can run.

An examination of practice reveals differing approaches: The development of new technologies – Using everyday technologies in new ways –The technology of stimulating imagination

Speakers include: Active Ingredient, Steven Benford (Mixed Reality Lab), Cliff Randell (developer, wearable computing), Christian Nold, Jen Southern, Nuno Sacramento

Chaired by: Steven Benford

16:30 – 18:30 Panel 7 New research addressing Dance, Performance and Digital Cultures

New scholarship in the contemporary dance and performance media studies field, critical & creative writing on contemporary dance and new media.

Speakers include: Ivani Santana (Bahia, Brazil), Ran Hyman (Vancouver), Stamatia Portanova (London), Isabel Valverde (Portugal), Aylin Kalem (Istanbul), et al

Panel Respondents: Philippe Baudelot, Sue Broadhurst

Sunday, December 4

10:oo English Breakfast at Broadway Cafebar 10:00 - 11:30

with Informal Network Session

11:30 - 13:oo

Join us for a tour through town visiting the Radiator Festival exhibition of artists¹ commissions

13:oo - 16:oo Closing Panel 8: Digital Cultures and Technology Art

Has dance/performance changed over the past 20 years, and has the impact of digital media, capturing, interactive system design, and computing spaces effectively altered the relations of production, research and creativity?

Have we seen the growth of an international collaborative culture, or of distinct hybrid forms which have opened up the conventions of live art? Is there more screen-based or installation-based distribution? Has dance and technology evolved beyond dance and technology, turned mainstream or established its own venues and communities?

How far has digital creativity entered dance and art education, performance science and art & technology research? Critical reception and audience acceptance? Is it possible to formulate a political concept of dance cultures which takes into account the depoliticized or neoliberal technocentrism/market orientation of much of the research in the creative industries?

What are the examples of bottom-up performance and science collaboration?

Examples of Work: Outcome of the Research-Meeting (Digital Cultures Lab) and current research and creation in the field (reports from the field)

Speakers include: Philippe Baudelot (Monaco Dance Forum, keynote), Henry Daniel (TRANSNET, Vancouver), Xin Zeng (Beijing), Mine Kaylan (Leleg: Bodrum)/ Aylin Kalem Iscen (Istanbul, Techne Festival), Armando Menicacci (Mediadanse, Paris), Beryl Graham (CRUMB), Erin Manning (Montréal)

Chaired by Johannes Birringer

The Symposium has been moved to Arkwright Lecture Theatre, across the street from Victoria Studios.

image credit: Simon Biggs/Sue Hawksley (c) 2005