Cyberformance in the Third Space: A Conversation with Helen Varley Jamieson

Cyberformance in the Third Space: A Conversation with Helen Varley Jamieson

By Randall Packer.
http://www.furtherfield.org/features/cyberformance-third-space-conversation-helen-varley-jamieson

Since 1999, pioneering cyberformance artist Helen Varley Jamieson has been exploring the Internet as a space for live performance and social engagement, long before Skype and Google Hangout became popular Web-conferencing tools. As one of the founders of UpStage, an open source platform for online theatrical presentation, Helen is a leading catalyst, researcher, director, and maker who for years has been reimagining the Internet as a global space for theater and performance. We discuss the evolution of her work, as well as her most recent cyberformance, “we r now[here]”* for the Art of the Networked Practice | Online Symposium (March 31 - April 2).
http://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/symposium2015/

The title and description of the work poetically articulates her thinking on networked space (third space) as a medium for online theatrical experimentation: “‘we r now[here]’ is about nowhere and somewhere: the ‘nowhere’ of the Internet becomes ‘now’ and ‘here’ through our virtual presence.” (* Special thanks to Annie Abrahams who provided the title for the work: “we r now[here],” and to Curt Cloninger who inspired it.)

Randall Packer is an artist, composer, educator, and writer. He is currently Visiting Associate Professor in the School of Art, Design & Media at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and the co-chair of the Art of the Networked Practice | Online Symposium. You can follow him at Reportage from the Aesthetic Edge, his blog critiquing the unfolding media culture.
http://www.randallpacker.com/