We all know that the Covid pandemic has had an enormous impact on the performing arts, but we’re still learning how this has changed contemporary practices and what the future might hold in terms of creating engaging online performance.

When the stage is a screen

ALL THE WORLD’S A SCREEN is a live online panel discussion in which performance, Shakespeare and technology specialists, Pascale Aebischer, Lucy Askew and Sarah Ellis will discuss their own distinctive and innovative approaches to online theatre. The panel will provide a unique opportunity to present, contrast and discuss their results, as well as the conceptual and technical challenges they faced in pursuit of newfound digital aesthetics that define a language of online theatre. How is it possible to convey tragedy, comedy and magic through code, 3D modelling, live audio-video streams and interactive systems? And how have online theatre audiences learnt to suspend disbelief in new and necessary ways?

Overlooking the occasional technical glitch or even embracing it as the authenticity of liveness, negotiating latency, navigating time zones, and identifying with a mirrored image of self, are all new online phenomenon. How do we overcome them or turn them to our advantage? All theatre is essentially technical, but what are the advantages, disadvantages and distinct differences between online and physical theatre?

Whilst online theatre has presented new forms of dramaturgy and choreography through new paradigms, structures and experience, is it essentially reframing how we touch, how we feel intimacy and experience proprioception, for both performers and audiences or is it extending our understanding of their essential qualities?

Sharing ideas

The panel will be co-moderated by Paul Sermon and Satinder Gill and is co-hosted by the University of Brighton’s Centre for Digital Media Cultures, Leonardo ISAST and the Third Space Network.

Professor Sermon is a Telematic Artist, Professor of Visual Communication at the University of Brighton and Telepresence Stage Principal Investigator. Dr Gill is Research affiliate in the Centre for Music and Science at the University of Cambridge. Both Professor Paul Sermon and Dr Satinder Gill are part of the team for the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Covid-19 Response project Telepresence Stage.

The event on the 2nd December is part of the Telematic LASER series within the Leonardo/ISAST LASER Talks. Telematic LASER was established by Paul Sermon working in collaboration with international Visiting Research Fellow Dr Randall Packer and the Third Space Network. Telematic LASER offers online public dialogues, performance and experimentation among leading artists, researchers and scientists working at the intersection of art, telecommunications and society. It Is supported by University of Brighton’s Centre for Digital Media Cultures and School of Art and Media, and forms a node within the Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (Leonardo/ISAST) network. Telematic LASER is co-hosted quarterly by Paul Sermon and Randall Packer.

Find out more about the panellists and register for the discussion here:

leonardo.info/telematic-laser-all-the-world-s-a-screen