Moderator – Ann Ferguson, University of Washington

Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre – Cheryl Faver

Global Performing Arts Consortium (GloPAC) – Karen Brazell, Cornell University

Virtual Vaudeville Project – David Saltz, University of Georgia

This panel highlights three significant digital performing arts projects developed by scholars and artists.  The panelists discuss and demonstrate their work and the complex issues involved in the documentation, recreation and preservation of performance. 

David Saltz (University of Georgia) Virtual Vaudeville: Simulation and the Risks of Positivism offers a look at the NSF-funded Virtual Vaudeville Project which aims to recreate an historical performance in a virtual reality environment.  

Karen Brazell (Cornell University) describes the development of the Global Performing Arts Consortium's new multilingual and multimedia resources for scholarship and teaching in "On with the Show": Creating Digital Resources for a Global Audience.

Cheryl Faver (Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre) The Digital Challenge of Theatrical Innovation explains the cutting-edge work of GSRT in its production of Making of Americans, which involves live animation tools, computer-generated modeling and the technological merger of human and digital characters.               

12:00 – 1:30  Lunch on your own

 Afternoon Panels

1:30 – 3:00     PERFORMING ARTS ONLINE:  VIRTUALLY ACROSS THE POND

Moderator – Pamela Bloom, New York University

Performing Arts Data Service (U. K.) – Catherine Owen

Performance Arts Digital Research Unit (U. K.) – Barry Smith

Theatron (U. K.) – Hugh Denard

This panel examines contributions from the United Kingdom, with participants demonstrating their collections and discussing issues involved in digital creation, selection, and preservation.

Catherine Owen (University of Glasgow) of Performing Arts Data Service, "What Happens When the Money Runs Out?": Librarians and the Digital Resources Challenge. 
Catherine Owen collects, documents, preserves and promotes the use of digital data resources to support learning, teaching and research in the performing arts.

Barry Smith (Nottingham Trent University School of Art and Design)  Director, Performance Arts Digital Research Unit, Just a Trace.  Barry Smith conducts a range of research projects involving new developments in performance and live art (computers, artificial intelligence, robotics, etc.), the Live Art Archives (U.K.) and many smaller collections.

Hugh Denard (University of Warwick) of Theatron, Performing the Past: the Virtual Revolution in Performance History.
Hugh Denard develops virtual 3D tours of ancient theatres. Two recent projects include The Stage for Dionysos, an interactive touch screen presentation, and the architectural visualization of Helleran Festspielhaus, a unique building regarded as the birthplace of modern theatre. 

 3:00 – 3:15   Break

 3:15 – 4:45   DIGITAL PRESERVATION: PARADIGMS AND PARTNERSHIPS  

Howard Besser, New York University

Conceptual and Intermedia Arts Online (CIAO)/Archiving the Avant Garde – Richard Rinehart, Berkeley Art Museum

Variable Media Network – Jon Ippolito

This panel addresses the challenges of developing standards and best practices in this uncertain environment. Panelists present innovative models for capturing, documenting and guaranteeing future life of digitized information and new media.

Howard Besser of New York University's Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program offers  Preservation of Electronic Performance: New Paradigms in which he discusses how we must re-conceptualize our traditional methodologies of saving information. 

Jon Ippolito offers Digital Performance: Damnation or Salvation? and will demonstrate the Variable Media Network, an extensive online survey which empowers artists in designating how their installation work should be reconceived in the future. 

Richard Rinehart of Berkeley Art Museum,   Archiving the Avant Garde offers The Straw That Broke the Museum's Back? Documenting and Preserving Digital Art for the Next Century. (To view the handout for this presentation, click here)

4:45 – 5:15    CLOSING REMARKS – Ann Doyle, Internet2 Manager for Arts and Humanities Initiatives, Where is There?!:  Multi-site Performance Events and the Opportunities and Challenges They Create.

5:15 – 5:30    Discussion

5:30 – 6:30    Reception – Rose Building, 7th floor Studio, Amsterdam Avenue/65th Street

Back to Top

Back to Final Report