Cyberfeminism is a feminist approach which foregrounds the relationship between cyberspace, the Internet, and technology. It can be used to refer to a philosophy, methodology or community. The term was coined in the early 1990s to describe the work of feminists interested in theorizing, critiquing, exploring and re-making the Internet, cyberspace and new-media technologies in general. The foundational catalyst for the formation of cyberfeminist thought is attributed to Donna Haraway's "A Cyborg Manifesto", third wave feminism, post-structuralist feminism, riot grrrl culture and the feminist critique of the alleged erasure of women within discussions of technology.
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.
Alan Sondheim is a poet, critic, musician, artist, and theorist of cyberspace from the United States.
Melinda Rackham is an Australian writer, artist and curator.
Cyberformance refers to live theatrical performances in which remote participants are enabled to work together in real time through the medium of the internet, employing technologies such as chat applications or purpose-built, multiuser, real-time collaborative software. 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.
The Magdalena Project is an international network of women in contemporary theatre and performance. It aims to increase awareness of women's contributions to theatre and to create the artistic and economic structures and support networks to enable women to work.
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.
Furtherfield.org is an artist-led online community, arts organisation and online magazine. It creates and supports global participatory projects with networks of artists, theorists and activists. and offers "a chance for the public to present its own views and enter or alter various art discourses". Their lab-office and gallery currently operates out of in Finsbury Park in London, UK.
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.
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.
Stuart H. Harris is an English author of books and articles about the internet, and internet consultant, now living in California, United States. He is a computer professional, an expert on IRC and has written a book on the subject, IRC Survival Guide: Talk to the World with Internet Relay Chat, published in 1995 by Addison-Wesley. He is also a performer with three years experience as a semi-professional actor on the festival circuit, two years as a professional in London and in provincial repertory theatre, and further experience as a director in television. The aforementioned extensive cross-disciplinary experience motivated Harris to explore the potential of creating a Shakespeare performance online; namely, a contemporary production of Shakespeare's Hamlet known as Hamnet.
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."
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).
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".
Helen Louise Thorington was an American radio artist, composer, performer and writer. She was also the founder of New Radio and Performing Arts (1981), a nonprofit organization based in New York City; the founder and executive producer of New American Radio (1987-1998); and the founder and co-director of Turbulence.org (1996–2016).
Ghislaine Boddington is a British artist, curator, presenter and director specialising in body responsive technologies, immersive experiences and collective embodiment, pioneering it as 'hyper-enhancement of the senses' and 'hyper-embodiment' since the late 80s.
Magdalena Aotearoa is a network of women in performing arts based in New Zealand.
Sally Katherine Rodwell was a New Zealand multi-disciplinary artist who worked mainly in the fields of theatre, film, and poetry. Her creative work included performing, directing and writing; making masks, puppets and costumes; film-making, illustration and publishing. She was a co-founder with Alan Brunton of the iconic Red Mole Theatre Company in 1974 and with Madeline McNamara of Magdalena Aotearoa in 1997.
Gabri Christa is a Dutch performance artist, choreographer, professor, film-maker and writer. She is an associate professor of Professional Practice at Barnard College and also the Director for the Movement Lab there.
