Cyberformance

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Cyberformance refers to live theatrical performances in which remote participants are enabled to work together in real time through the medium of the internet, [1] employing technologies such as chat applications or purpose-built, multiuser, real-time collaborative software (for example, UpStage, Visitors Studio, the Waterwheel Tap, MOOs, and other platforms). Cyberformance is also known as online performance, networked performance, telematic performance, and digital theatre; there is as yet no consensus on which term should be preferred, but cyberformance has the advantage of compactness. For example, it is commonly employed by users of the UpStage platform to designate a special type of Performance art activity taking place in a cyber-artistic environment.

Contents

Cyberformance can be created and presented entirely online, for a distributed online audience who participate via internet-connected computers anywhere in the world, or it can be presented to a proximal audience (such as in a physical theatre or gallery venue) with some or all of the performers appearing via the internet; or it can be a hybrid of the two approaches, with both remote and proximal audiences and/or performers.

History and context

The term 'cyberformance' (a portmanteau word blending 'cyberspace' with 'performance') was coined by the net artist and curator Helen Varley Jamieson. [2] She states that the invention of this term in 2000 "came out of the need to find a word that avoided the polarisation of virtual and real, and the need for a new term (rather than 'online performance' or 'virtual theatre') for a new genre". [3] Jamieson traces the history of cyberformance back to the Satellite Arts Project of 1977, [4] when interactive art pioneers Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz used live video mixing to create what they called "a performance space with no geographic boundaries". [5]

Online performances or virtual theatre has taken place in a number of the virtual environments that have emerged since the 1980s, including the multi-user virtual environments known as MUDs and MOOs in the 1970s, internet chat spaces (e.g. Internet Relay Chat, or IRC) in the 1980s, the Palace graphical chatroom in the 1990s, and UpStage, Visitors Studio, Second Life, Waterwheel Tap and other platforms in the 2000s. Notable cyberformance groups and projects thus far include:

Features of cyberformance

Cyberformance differs from digital performance, which refers to any kind of digitally mediated performance, including those with no significant networked element. [16] In some cases cyberformance may be considered a subset of net art; however, many cyberformance artists use what is termed 'mixed reality' or 'mixed space' for their work, linking physical, virtual, and cyber spaces in manifold ingenious ways. The internet is often a subject and inspiration of the work as well as being the central enabling technology.

Cyberformers often work with the dual identities afforded by avatars, exploiting the gap between online persona and offline self. They can also take advantage of the ease of switching between avatars in a way unavailable to 'proximal' actors. [17] However cyberformance has its own unique problems, including unstable technology and "real life" interruptions. [18]

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In computing, an avatar is a graphical representation of a user, the user's character, or persona. Avatars can be two-dimensional icons in Internet forums and other online communities, where they are also known as profile pictures, userpics, or formerly picons. Alternatively, an avatar can take the form of a three-dimensional model, as used in online worlds and video games, or an imaginary character with no graphical appearance, as in text-based games or worlds such as MUDs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metaverse</span> Collective three-dimensional virtual shared space

The metaverse is a loosely defined term referring to three-dimensional virtual worlds in which users represented by avatars interact.

Strictly, digital theatre is a hybrid art form, gaining strength from theatre's ability to facilitate the imagination and create human connections and digital technology's ability to extend the reach of communication and visualization.

A MOO is a text-based online virtual reality system to which multiple users (players) are connected at the same time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cityspace</span>

CitySpace was an internet-based virtual world launched at SIGGRAPH 1993 by educator and project director Zane Vella. CitySpace was one of the earliest online virtual 3D environments and first came to attention via mainstream news media in late 1993. CitySpace was also the first user-generated virtual world, similar to virtual worlds like Second Life, and enabled participants to contribute 3D computer graphics and digital imagery to a collaborative real-time rendered 3D virtual world in which participants interacted with each other via avatars. CitySpace was active from 1993-1996 and won the 1996 NII Award for Arts and Entertainment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Worlds.com</span> Online virtual world-based chat program

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">UpStage</span>

UpStage is an open source server-side application that has been purpose built for Cyberformance: multiple artists collaborate in real time via the UpStage platform to create and present live theatrical performances, for audiences who can be online or in a shared space, and who can interact with the performance via a text chat tool. It can also be understood as a form of digital puppetry. It is the first open source platform designed specifically for avatar performances.

Arts in Second Life is an artistic area of a 3D social network that has served, since 2003, as a platform for various artistic pursuits and exhibitions.

Antoinette LaFarge is a new media artist and writer known for her work with mixed-reality performance and projects exploring the conjunction of visual art and fiction.

The Hamnet Players, founded in 1993, carried out the first experimental virtual theatre cyberperformance. The performance was a parody of Shakespeare's Hamlet using IRC chat on 12 December 1993.

Digital Performance refers to the use of computers as an interface between a creator, consumer of images, and sounds in a wide range of artistic applications. It is performance that incorporates and integrates computer technologies and techniques. Performers can incorporate multimedia into any type of production whether it is live on a theatre stage, or in the street. Anything as small as video recordings or a visual image classifies the production as multimedia. When the key role in a performance is the technologies, it is considered a digital performance. This can be as simple as making projections on a screen for a live audience or as complex as planning and putting on a show online.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helen Varley Jamieson</span>

Helen Varley Jamieson is a digital media artist, playwright, performer, director and producer from New Zealand. She "is engaged in an ongoing exploration of the collision between theatre and the internet." Since 1997 she has been working on the internet professionally. In the year 2000 Helen Varley Jamieson coined the term cyberformance. This term is a combination of two words, cyberspace and performance. Jamieson states that "cyberformance can be located as a distinct form within the subsets of networked performance and digital performance, and within the overall form of theatre, as it is a live performance form with an audience that is complicit in the completion of the work in real time."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Annie Abrahams</span> Dutch artist

Annie Abrahams is a Dutch performance artist specialising in video installations and internet based performances, often deriving from collective writings and collective interaction. Born and raised in Hilvarenbeek in the Netherlands, she migrated to and settled in France in 1987. Her performance work challenges and questions the limitations and possibilities of online communication and collaboration. Abrahams describes her body of work as "an aesthetics of trust and attention." Studying biology became an inspiration for her future line of work. "When studying biology I had to observe a colony of monkeys in a zoo. I found this very interesting because I learned something about human communities by watching the apes. In a certain way I watch the internet with the same appetite and interest. I consider it to be a universe where I can observe some aspects of human attitudes and behaviour without interfering."

Avatar Repertory Theater commonly known as ART,is a theatre troupe that performs primarily in the virtual world Second Life, though they have recently extended to other virtual platforms such as OSGrid and Kitely.

Stephen Alan Schrum is a theatre director and associate professor of Theater Arts at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg. His most current research area being "The Perception of Presence in Virtual Performance". Schrum has created work on online based performance in virtual worlds, play writing and he has published a variety of books on theatre. Schrum currently teaches courses based on theatre and technology. Alongside lecturing over the past years Schrum has worked for Association for Theatre in Higher Education delivering conferences and workshops based on the topic Theatre and Technology. Prior to this, Schrum attended the University of California. It was there that he received his PhD in Dramatic Art. Alongside his PhD Schrum also has an MA in Theatre from Ohio State University (1983) and a BA in Theatre from Temple University (1981).

The Avatar Orchestra Metaverse (AOM) is a large collaborative group of performers spread across three continents, who incorporate the use of online avatars alongside virtual instruments, to create a variety of audio-visual performances within Second Life.

Desktop Theater was a digital performance project created by Adriene Jenik and Lisa Brenneis that ran from 1997 to 2002. The project consisted of a series of early experiments in network performances using online discussion rooms and visual chat applications such as The Palace. The objective was to introduce a compelling way for the public to interact with theater online and the audiences responses in the chat room were seen as an important element of the work. The project created over 40 web-based performances during its lifetime.

The Plaintext Players were an online performance group founded by Antoinette LaFarge in 1994. Consisting mainly of artists and writers, they engaged in improvisational cyberformance on MOOs and later branched out into mixed reality performance, working with stage actors. Their performances form a "hybrid of theatre, fiction and poetry".

Decentraland is a 3D virtual world browser-based platform. Users may buy virtual plots of land in the platform as NFTs via the MANA cryptocurrency, which uses the Ethereum blockchain. Designers can create and sell clothes and accessories for the avatars to be used in the virtual world.

References

  1. ↑ Papagiannouli, Christina (2016). Political Cyberformance: The Etheatre Project. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN   978-1-137-57703-0.
  2. ↑ Jung, Patricia (April 2005). "Performers go web". Linux Journal. 2005 (132): 4. Retrieved 2008-09-23.
  3. ↑ Jamieson, Helen Varley. "cyberformance" . Retrieved 2008-09-23.
  4. ↑ Jamieson, Helen Varley. "Timeline" . Retrieved 2008-09-23.
  5. ↑ "Satellite Arts Project 1977". Electronic Cafe. Retrieved 2008-09-23.
  6. ↑ The Hamnet Players
  7. ↑ "The Plaintext Players". Archived from the original on 2019-09-24. Retrieved 2008-05-01.
  8. ↑ "ParkBench". Archived from the original on 2019-09-05. Retrieved 2008-05-01.
  9. ↑ Desktop Theater
  10. ↑ Avatar Body Collision
  11. ↑ Neumark, N.; Helen Varley Jamieson (July–September 2007). "UpStage: A Platform for Creating and Performing Online". IEEE MultiMedia. 14 (3): 8–10. doi:10.1109/MMUL.2007.69.
  12. ↑ aether9
  13. ↑ Avatar Orchestra Metaverse
  14. ↑ Second Front
  15. ↑ "Low Lives". Archived from the original on 2019-09-23. Retrieved 2012-04-25.
  16. ↑ Jamieson, Helen Varley (2008). Real Time, Virtual Space, Live Theatre. Clouds. pp. 48–56. ISBN   978-0-9582789-9-7.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  17. ↑ Ptacek, Karla (2003-09-01). "Avatar Body Collision: enactments in distributed performance practices". Digital Creativity. 14 (3): 180–192. doi:10.1076/digc.14.3.180.27873. S2CID   38342687.
  18. ↑ Ptacek, Karla; Helen Varley Jamieson (2004-11-30). "Writing 4 Cyberformance". trAce Online Writing Centre. Archived from the original on 2008-12-05. Retrieved 2008-09-23.

Further reading

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