Performance and Technology: Keeping Arts Alive
The survival of arts and cultural activities has never been more crucial, nor more in jeopardy. This survival will rely on illustrating relevance and increasing accessibility via digital delivery, including affordable real-time broadcast and methods that support interactivity. We will discuss methods and emerging expertise in scaling works of performing art and culture to the Internet and to the computing platforms that support performance and interaction, as well as methods for integrating new technologies with performance for aesthetic value. Join us as we explore how arts and culture can participate in digital media and emerging technology to reach more people and retain immediacy and value.
Presenters
Alyce Myatt is the Director of Media Arts at the National Endowment for the Arts. She previously served as the founding executive director of Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media after working as a consultant to independent media organizations and the philanthropic community. As a consultant her clients included the Center for Digital Democracy, the Council on Foundations, Free Speech TV, the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture, Emerson College, TVE Brasil, the Heinz Endowments, and the Annie E. Casey and Skillman Foundations. Prior to her return to consulting, she was vice president of programming for PBS and was a program officer for media at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Over the years she has provided program development, production and planning services to a variety of clients in television, radio, and digital media. Her production credits include the Smithsonian Institution, Nickelodeon, and the ABC News magazine, "20/20."
The Hidden Room is a theatrical curiosity shop. We specialize in the unexpected. Our last production, an award-winning "You Wouldn't Know Her, She Lives in London," is a groundbreaking collaboration with our UK partners Look Left Look Right, linked UK and the US audiences live via Skype and engaged in interactive storytelling between the countries. Our next production is Rose Rage, Propeller's adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry VI trilogy. We are using actors both in Austin and in London, rehearsing via Skype, then bringing them together just before the show as a complete international team. Artistic director Beth Burns teaches improvisation and Shakespeare, and worked for LA's Groundlings Theatre for over ten years. Her last round of workshops sold out in London.
Currently responsible for the creative use of new technologies at the Roundhouse, London and a NESTA Fellow as part of the Clore Leadership Programme.
I am particularly interested in pursuing best use of new technologies to enable creative collaboration, enable artists to reach new audiences, encourage innovation in traditional art forms, develop new business models for the arts and encourage creative led learning in education.
My main interest is in developing new work specifically for online audiences while challenging the idea that true live experiences can only exist for audiences physically in the same space as the performance.
A theater-maker, and web, internet, and mobile technology consultant.
SXSW 2012 Panel – "Performance and Technology: Keeping Arts Alive"
Current positions: Director of technology for The Hidden Room Theatre, board trustee for Austin Shakespeare, principal at Social Web Strategies (Austin), project manager for Polycot Associates drupal development, and social web consultant at SkillBase (Kuwait City) and Janet Mitchell Group (Austin).
Robert has been the director of communications and client services for Amicus, Inc., a hosted web applications firm. Prior, Robert worked in the AppleCare division of Apple Inc.
Robert produces, directs, and acts for the stage, and voice-acts for video games. Recently, Robert co-produced the New Russian Drama Festival in Austin, featuring English-langauge premieres of Russia's some of exciting new plays and which included the attendance of playwrights called “the light and hope of Russian theater” by the Moscow Times. You can battle Robert's voice in the shape of DC Universe Online's villain Doctor Psycho.
Monday, March 12
