Education and Accessibility sponsor of the Festival of Ideas and Creation
Festival of Ideas and Creation
New Technologies and Performance
The Festival of Ideas and Creation (FIC) is a gathering of Artists, Arts Practitioners, and Thought Leaders from a variety of disciplines. The Festival is built to be a responsive space to consider creative practices. It is a space for artists and audiences to come together, and interrogate and investigate that which is pressing, new, or challenging in artistic creation communities. It is a space that will build and feed the creative imagination of all participants, presenting engaging panels, workshops, and lively guided discussion groups. The FIC will build networks and enhance community connections, foster curiosity and imagination, and connections between artistic communities and Canadian Stage.
The Festival of Ideas and Creation: New Technologies and Performance will explore how technologies, as tools and modalities, can enhance, challenge, and broaden our practices as contemporary artists. The 4-day event will feature curated conversations exploring technology, liveness, and performance.
The Festival of Ideas and Creation: New Technologies and Performance will explore how technologies, as tools and modalities, can enhance, challenge, and broaden our practices as contemporary artists. The 4-day event will feature curated conversations exploring technology, liveness, and performance.
Join us from May 17-20, 2021 to discover more possibilities in our digital futures!
Technology and the Performer
Event Type: Panel
Date & Time: Monday, May 17 from 5:00-6:30pm EDT
Length: 90 minutes
Panelists: Jessica B Hill, Cara Ricketts, EM Williams
Moderator: Sebastien Heins
About: How do technological interventions support and challenge a live performer’s practice? What draws you, as a performer, to exploring technology as part of your practice? This panel will bring together three incredible performers in conversation about the challenges and opportunities in live performance that is rooted in new and emergent technologies.
BMO Lab Presents: Techno-Babble for the Inspired Storyteller
BMO Lab Experiments 1 - “GPT-2: The AI Text-Generator” for Performers, Creators, and Playwrights: Tuesday, May 18 from 2:30- 3:30pm EDT
BMO Lab Experiments 2 - “Voxels: The Invisible Motion Sensing Triggers” for Designers, Performers, and Directors: Wednesday, May 19 from 2:30 - 3:30pm EDT
BMO Lab Experiments 3 - “Motion Capture: The Digital Puppet” for Performers, Designers, and Puppeteers: Thursday, May 20 from 2:30 - 4:00pm EDT
BMO Lab Experiments 2 - “Voxels: The Invisible Motion Sensing Triggers” for Designers, Performers, and Directors: Wednesday, May 19 from 2:30 - 3:30pm EDT
BMO Lab Experiments 3 - “Motion Capture: The Digital Puppet” for Performers, Designers, and Puppeteers: Thursday, May 20 from 2:30 - 4:00pm EDT
Length: 60 - 90 minutes
Featured Guests: Maev Beaty, Ryan Cunningham, Sebastien Heins, Pia Kleber, Rick Miller, David Rokeby, Johanna Schall
About: Storytelling has evolved from words spoken around a fire, to epic tragedies witnessed by thousands in stone amphitheatres, to Travis Scott in Fortnite. Join Ryan Cunningham, Sébastien Heins, and their colleagues at the BMO Lab, as they share stories using the latest technologies, including; AI Text-Generation, Voxel Motion Sensing, and Motion Capture and discover how these tools might help you find creative inspiration.
Technology and the Storyteller
Event Type: In Conversation
Date & Time: Tuesday, May 18 from 5:00-6:30pm EDT
Length: 90 minutes
Featured Guests: Milton Lim & Ryan Cunningham
About: How can new modalities impact the ways that live performance creators tell stories? Discussing how technologies influence story, we bring together two artists whose practice and interest exists at the intersection of technology, storytelling, and our shared futures. Join us as Milton Lim and Ryan Cunningham discuss how emergent technologies can impact how we work as artists.
Technology and the Curator: the cut, the tear & the remix
Event Type: Panel
Date & Time: Wednesday, May 19 from 5:00-6:30pm EDT
Length: 90 minutes
Panelists: stylo starr, SPATIAL-ESK, Kofi Oduro (IllestPreacha)
Moderator: Mel Hague
About: How does digital work make an impact on its audience? How are artists and creators integrating technologies into existing practices? How can curators support challenging artistic explorations in digital media? What are the challenges in creating connection in digital artistic spaces?
Join us as we chat with members of the creative team behind the cut, the tear & the remix: contemporary collage and Black futures, a virtual exhibition presented by McMaster Museum of Art and Nia Centre for the Arts. The team will share their journey of building the exhibition, working collaboratively in a digital environment, and present a guided walk through of the virtual gallery space.
About the Exhibit: the cut, the tear & the remix: contemporary collage and Black futures
A virtual exhibition presented by McMaster Museum of Art and Nia Centre for the Arts and the Curator in Residence program.
the cut, the tear & the remix: contemporary collage and Black futures brings together the work of eight contemporary artists deeply engaged in the excavation of a future informed by their individual ancestral connections to the African and Caribbean diaspora and their varied interpretations of collage. This online exhibition presents “cut & paste” techniques in not only its traditional tactile paper and photomontage iterations, but also in uncharacteristic expressions of new media including video, text and design. The digital presentation of the remix, as a result of current global circumstances, is in and of itself an envisioning of the future of Black spatial and temporal experiences marking an invitation to participate in this new imagining.
the cut, the tear & the remix is an output of starr’s curatorial research and mentorship through the unique Curator-in-Residence program hosted by the McMaster Museum of Art and Nia Centre for the Arts.
Exhibit Curator: stylo starr
Featured Artists: Emkay Adjei-Manu, Ghislan Timm, Anna Binta Diallo, FEZA, Kofi Oduro (IllestPreacha), Sonya Mwambu, Yung Yemi, and SPATIAL-ESK
The RBC Emerging Artists – Working Apart/Working Together
Event Type: In Conversation
Date & Time: Thursday, May 20 from 5:00-6:30pm EDT
Length: 90 minutes
Panelists: Live Cinema Collective (Maziar Ghaderi, Derek Kwan, Star Nahwegahbo, Banafsheh Taherian)
Moderator: Mel Hague
About: What are the benefits and challenges of the online collaborative artistic processes? How does working with multiple technologies enhance and complicate the creation process? Following their one-month intensive residency, the Live Cinema Collective join Mel Hague in conversation about their artistic practice and shared discoveries. The Live Cinema will showcase their performance research and the possible futures of technology and collective creation practice.
Schedule at a Glance
| Mon, May 17 | Tue, May 18 | Wed, May 19 | Thu, May 20 | |
| 2:30 PM | BMO Lab Presents: “GPT-2: The AI Text-Generator” | BMO Lab Presents: “Voxels: The Invisible Motion Sensing Triggers” | BMO Lab Presents: “Motion Capture: The Digital Puppet” | |
| 5:00 PM | Technology and the Performer | Technology and the Storyteller | Technology and the Curator: the cut, the tear & the remix | The RBC Emerging Artists – Working Apart/Working Together |
