Providence, RI -- In a world awash with digital arts and entertainment, what is the place of live performance? Multimedia artist Todd Winkler, and theatre director Kym Moore, are both faculty members at Brown University tackling this question in a course called Performance in a Virtual World. This production-based course involves an eclectic group of graduate and undergraduate students in acting, directing, playwriting, traditional and electronic music composition, and computer science. The students come together to explore emerging interactive and immersive media technologies, and how performance strategies in acting and directing are transformed when operating in a virtual world.
Class instructors, Associate Professor Kym Moore (Theatre Arts and Performance Studies) and Professor Todd Winkler (MEME), invite the public to attend two public lectures on this subject presented by internationally renowned arts collectives, Gob Squad (October 28) and Cloud Eye Control (November 18).
Moore and Winkler describe themselves as artistic collaborators and, as Winkler says, “this course is a way to continue our collaborative research on how technology impacts movement, human interaction, theatrical design, and expression in live performance.” Moore explains, “I want students to explore technology as a way to push the boundaries of theatrical performance simultaneously exploring investigating how these technologies impact the human being.”
As part of their course, Winkler and Moore invite artists from around the world for hands-on workshops with students. Twice this term, Moore and Winkler will open up their class to the Brown and local communities for conversations and lectures with two renowned performance groups. The presentations are free, although reservations are encouraged. Visit brown.edu/tickets to reserve.
Public Events in Performance in a Virtual World
Events are free and open to the public, but reservations are encouraged. Please go to: brown.edu/tickets to reserve.
IT DOESN’T ALWAYS MAKE SENSE: AN ILLUSTRATED LECTURE BY GOB SQUAD
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28 AT 7:30PM
London and Berlin-based arts collective, Gob Squad, searches for new ways to combine media and performance, producing stage shows, video installations, radio plays, interactive live films and urban interventions. The use of audio and video technology plays a prominent role in their work, with the result that alienated forms of intimacy have become a central theme. Always on the hunt for beauty amidst the mundane, they place their work at the heart of urban life: in houses, shops, underground stations, car parks, hotels or directly on the street, as well as in theatres and galleries. Everyday life and magic, banality and idealism, reality and entertainment are all set on a collision course and the unpredictable results are captured on video. Sponsored by TAPS, and the Office of the Vice Provost for the Arts. For ticket reservations go to brown.edu/tickets.
A CONVERSATION WITH CHI-WANG YANG ‘99, MIWA MATRAYEK, AND ANNA OXYGEN (CLOUD EYE CONTROL)
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18 AT NOON
(Co-sponsored with FirstWorks)
Los Angeles-based Cloud Eye Control is a collaborative performance group comprised of three members: Brown University alumnus Chi-wang Yang ‘99, along with Miwa Matreyek and Anna Oxygen. Cloud Eye Control will be presenting their East Coast debut of Half Life at the Columbus Theatre, presented by FirstWorks. The three artists will talk about their work which is a mix of projected animation, live performance, and music that examines the psychological fallout of global disaster. They create original works that uniquely combine interactive media with live performance. Since their inception in 2004 they have created three original works that have been presented both nationally and internationally. The talk at Brown is sponsored by TAPS, the Creative Arts Council and FirstWorks.
Chi-wang Yang ‘99 is a Los Angeles-based theater director and interdisciplinary artist, and founding member of video performance collective Cloud Eye Control. He is a graduate of Brown University, where he studied with Spencer Golub, John Emigh, and Michelle Bach-Coulibaly (Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies). His work, rigorously experimental and collaborative, integrates technology with movement and dance. It has been presented in theaters, galleries, and museums internationally, including at REDCAT, Fusebox Festival, EXIT Festival (France), Santiago a Mil (Chile), Time-Based Arts Festival, Havana Film Festival, San Francisco International Film Festival, and the Edinburgh Fringe. Recent projects include the multimedia opera Under Polaris with Cloud Eye Control, and The Closest Farthest Away/La Entrañable Lejanía, a groundbreaking collaboration between Cuban and American artists. Chi-wang currently teaches at the California Institute of the Arts, where he received his MFA in Theater Directing and Integrated Media.
Download the Performance in the Virtual World Press Release (PDF)