Digital world
The digital age is upon us. Multimedia and technology is spreading its tentacles into every facet of our lives. Now, exponents of performing arts are exploring its infinite uses — and their efforts will be on show at the Noosa Longweekend.
Technology is advancing in exciting and previously unimaginable ways. With the advent of the digital age, the spaces in which people interact have gone online. So much so that online social site Facebook currently logs 80 million active users. But it’s not only methods of social networking that have transformed.
Technology has affected how entertainment is produced and received, prompting an evolution of the performing arts into a myriad of original and hybrid media. Performances have embraced new multimedia and some of these art forms will be showcased at the Noosa Longweekend, which runs from July 4-13 and is proudly sponsored by the weekender.
“The arts are about exploring new mediums and experimenting and moving beyond the norm,” longweekend general manager Gail Hewton xplains. “The festival is trying to embrace areas of art creation that explore new avenues of performing art. It is important we give a platform for artists working in that area. It’s also a way for us to not only develop our audience’s appreciation, but also access new forms.”
Centuries ago, Shakespeare quipped, “All the world’s a stage”. Yet in the digital world, both the world and the stage have expanded exponentially. Online video sharing network YouTube calculated that, as of April 9 this year, there were 83.4 million video clips on the site, with more than 65,000 videos uploaded every day.
Central Queensland University arts lecturer Sue Davis sees the benefits of integrated multimedia in performing arts and is co-ordinating a new concept for a festival-based teenage program. Known as cyberdrama, it’s essentially a ground-breaking form of performances going online. “Cyberdrama is a drama that’s enacted within cyberspaces that can include, but is not restricted to, things like social networking spaces and online chats,” Sue explains. “Yet, at its heart, drama is about stories about real people.”
From July 7-11, Sue will work with teens aged 14-18 to create and present a hospital drama tinged with parody, with a working title of Noosa Scrubs. Workshops will include writing, acting, filming and producing the cyberdrama at CQU’s six-bed hospital training ward facility in Noosaville. “The idea is we’ll create some of the structural roles,” Sue says. “Then we’ll look at character types and the kids will play these. Then we’ll look at story threads and how they might interact.”
She will be supported by nursing lecturers Mark Broadbent and John Kemsley, who will act as technical advisers. The finished product will be uploaded on to social networking sites Facebook, Ning and YouTube. “The way to start generating an audience is to put them on social sites,” Sue says. “And, on the internet, often the content that works well is parody and humour.”
Noosa Scrubs is a portal for participants to get involved in creating drama that may be presented in both live and digital spaces. It’s a relatively new format, but web-based dramatic shows have gained much popularity across cyberspace. Internet users have been spellbound by series, lonelygirl15, quarterlife, Battlestar Galactica: The Resistance as well as Melbourne-based Tinytown, a webisode comedy about 12-year-old kids who happen to be cops. These programs have “aired” over the past two years and were specifically created for online viewing.
But, despite the technological aspect, there are still elements of performing arts that are sacrosanct. Sue says a strong narrative focus remains essential. “People think it’s all about technology but it’s also about telling stories to people,” she explains.
As a former drama teacher, Sue sees the value in using cyberdrama for educational purposes. She is currently completing a doctoral thesis in creative industries and points to the integration of multimedia technology into arts culture. “I wondered why we were previously just using technology to complement, or as a backdrop for, the live drama experience,” she says. “My question is, how is it used when we move to an online environment?”
Gail is enthusiastic in her support. “I like the idea you don’t have to go to the theatre to see this,” she says. “It can be shared with the whole world and I find that exciting.”
Yet it’s not only the dramatic arts that get the multimedia treatment. Circa is a “re-imagined circus” that will also perform at the annual longweekend. “Our shows are not created with a multimedia focus, but rather, they’re stripped back to the bare necessities,” executive producer Lewis Jones says. “All the elements are improvised by artistic director Yaron Lifschitz.”
With Circa, Yaron has created shows involving SMS interaction, jazz improvisation techniques and music collaboration, as well as improvisations using circus “language” within specific sites. Yaron developed Four Space Theory, which is described as “a framework for developing and exploring circus performance in new and unexpected ways. Yaron’s vision is of a philosophically challenging, poetic contemporary artform born out of the traditional languages of circus”.
Circa’s performance, The Space Between, is a meld of improvised choreography, physical techniques, a contemporary soundscape, video and lighting. “Yaron uses the language of the circus to explore certain concepts and he wanted to explore the space between three people,” Lewis says. “The spaces between is a very broad starting point for a show and we often find the audience are interpreting the performance in markedly different ways.”
The end result is an exciting exploration of improvisation and multimedia across various artforms. Stimulus for performers is found everywhere. Lewis is grateful for technical refinements, which allows for an easier transportable show. “It was much more difficult even five years ago,” he says of the show’s multimedia capabilities, which are now condensed into five laptops.
“Performers bounce off each other — in our case, literally — as well as the audience watching. Ideas are also bounced off the live music and the projected images,” he says. Ideas are also found everywhere in the festival’s annual short film competition, Reelmad.
Participants are given 24 hours to construct a short film, which must include simple elements such as a pizza or pineapple, or even as simple as a knock on the door. Organisers Belinda and Andrew Griffin see the expansion of technological convenience as a great strength in the Noosa community. “It’s becoming more and more accessible to people,” Andrew says. “Younger kids, which the competition targets, are much more savvy with technology and technology is catching up.”
Originally created in 2004, the festival was created for young people at the suggestion of daughter Annika. It has received commendations by former judges — At the Movies presenter Margaret Pomeranz and director Rolf De Heer — for its earthiness. Anyone with a computer and camera can participate. Indeed, there have been well-received entries using just the camera on a mobile phone. The internet will aid in the planned growth of the festival to other regional centres. “I think that we will grow because of technology,” Andrew says.
Although there are concerns with such developments, Sue Davis says technological growth should not raise alarm bells. “For young people, within the school context, the kind of media covered relate to the dangers of the internet and the creeps out there,” she says. ”There are also dangers with the creation of on-line personas. But it’s also about audience generation and the potential for a much wider audience. There is this notion the identities you play online need to be similar to our real identities.
“Rather than banning the internet, we need to work with children about using spaces in responsible and creative ways,” Sue explains. One thing for sure is the performing arts have benefited from the integration of multimedia and that benefits the audience.
Story: GREGORY STANTON
The digital age is upon us. Multimedia and technology is spreading its tentacles into every facet of our lives. Now, exponents of performing arts are exploring its infinite uses — and their efforts will be on show at the Noosa Longweekend.
Technology is advancing in exciting and previously unimaginable ways. With the advent of the digital age, the spaces in which people interact have gone online. So much so that online social site Facebook currently logs 80 million active users. But it’s not only methods of social networking that have transformed.
Technology has affected how entertainment is produced and received, prompting an evolution of the performing arts into a myriad of original and hybrid media. Performances have embraced new multimedia and some of these art forms will be showcased at the Noosa Longweekend, which runs from July 4-13 and is proudly sponsored by the weekender.
“The arts are about exploring new mediums and experimenting and moving beyond the norm,” longweekend general manager Gail Hewton xplains. “The festival is trying to embrace areas of art creation that explore new avenues of performing art. It is important we give a platform for artists working in that area. It’s also a way for us to not only develop our audience’s appreciation, but also access new forms.”
Centuries ago, Shakespeare quipped, “All the world’s a stage”. Yet in the digital world, both the world and the stage have expanded exponentially. Online video sharing network YouTube calculated that, as of April 9 this year, there were 83.4 million video clips on the site, with more than 65,000 videos uploaded every day.
Central Queensland University arts lecturer Sue Davis sees the benefits of integrated multimedia in performing arts and is co-ordinating a new concept for a festival-based teenage program. Known as cyberdrama, it’s essentially a ground-breaking form of performances going online. “Cyberdrama is a drama that’s enacted within cyberspaces that can include, but is not restricted to, things like social networking spaces and online chats,” Sue explains. “Yet, at its heart, drama is about stories about real people.”
From July 7-11, Sue will work with teens aged 14-18 to create and present a hospital drama tinged with parody, with a working title of Noosa Scrubs. Workshops will include writing, acting, filming and producing the cyberdrama at CQU’s six-bed hospital training ward facility in Noosaville. “The idea is we’ll create some of the structural roles,” Sue says. “Then we’ll look at character types and the kids will play these. Then we’ll look at story threads and how they might interact.”
She will be supported by nursing lecturers Mark Broadbent and John Kemsley, who will act as technical advisers. The finished product will be uploaded on to social networking sites Facebook, Ning and YouTube. “The way to start generating an audience is to put them on social sites,” Sue says. “And, on the internet, often the content that works well is parody and humour.”
Noosa Scrubs is a portal for participants to get involved in creating drama that may be presented in both live and digital spaces. It’s a relatively new format, but web-based dramatic shows have gained much popularity across cyberspace. Internet users have been spellbound by series, lonelygirl15, quarterlife, Battlestar Galactica: The Resistance as well as Melbourne-based Tinytown, a webisode comedy about 12-year-old kids who happen to be cops. These programs have “aired” over the past two years and were specifically created for online viewing.
But, despite the technological aspect, there are still elements of performing arts that are sacrosanct. Sue says a strong narrative focus remains essential. “People think it’s all about technology but it’s also about telling stories to people,” she explains.
As a former drama teacher, Sue sees the value in using cyberdrama for educational purposes. She is currently completing a doctoral thesis in creative industries and points to the integration of multimedia technology into arts culture. “I wondered why we were previously just using technology to complement, or as a backdrop for, the live drama experience,” she says. “My question is, how is it used when we move to an online environment?”
Gail is enthusiastic in her support. “I like the idea you don’t have to go to the theatre to see this,” she says. “It can be shared with the whole world and I find that exciting.”
Yet it’s not only the dramatic arts that get the multimedia treatment. Circa is a “re-imagined circus” that will also perform at the annual longweekend. “Our shows are not created with a multimedia focus, but rather, they’re stripped back to the bare necessities,” executive producer Lewis Jones says. “All the elements are improvised by artistic director Yaron Lifschitz.”
With Circa, Yaron has created shows involving SMS interaction, jazz improvisation techniques and music collaboration, as well as improvisations using circus “language” within specific sites. Yaron developed Four Space Theory, which is described as “a framework for developing and exploring circus performance in new and unexpected ways. Yaron’s vision is of a philosophically challenging, poetic contemporary artform born out of the traditional languages of circus”.
Circa’s performance, The Space Between, is a meld of improvised choreography, physical techniques, a contemporary soundscape, video and lighting. “Yaron uses the language of the circus to explore certain concepts and he wanted to explore the space between three people,” Lewis says. “The spaces between is a very broad starting point for a show and we often find the audience are interpreting the performance in markedly different ways.”
The end result is an exciting exploration of improvisation and multimedia across various artforms. Stimulus for performers is found everywhere. Lewis is grateful for technical refinements, which allows for an easier transportable show. “It was much more difficult even five years ago,” he says of the show’s multimedia capabilities, which are now condensed into five laptops.
“Performers bounce off each other — in our case, literally — as well as the audience watching. Ideas are also bounced off the live music and the projected images,” he says. Ideas are also found everywhere in the festival’s annual short film competition, Reelmad.
Participants are given 24 hours to construct a short film, which must include simple elements such as a pizza or pineapple, or even as simple as a knock on the door. Organisers Belinda and Andrew Griffin see the expansion of technological convenience as a great strength in the Noosa community. “It’s becoming more and more accessible to people,” Andrew says. “Younger kids, which the competition targets, are much more savvy with technology and technology is catching up.”
Originally created in 2004, the festival was created for young people at the suggestion of daughter Annika. It has received commendations by former judges — At the Movies presenter Margaret Pomeranz and director Rolf De Heer — for its earthiness. Anyone with a computer and camera can participate. Indeed, there have been well-received entries using just the camera on a mobile phone. The internet will aid in the planned growth of the festival to other regional centres. “I think that we will grow because of technology,” Andrew says.
Although there are concerns with such developments, Sue Davis says technological growth should not raise alarm bells. “For young people, within the school context, the kind of media covered relate to the dangers of the internet and the creeps out there,” she says. ”There are also dangers with the creation of on-line personas. But it’s also about audience generation and the potential for a much wider audience. There is this notion the identities you play online need to be similar to our real identities.
“Rather than banning the internet, we need to work with children about using spaces in responsible and creative ways,” Sue explains. One thing for sure is the performing arts have benefited from the integration of multimedia and that benefits the audience.
Story: GREGORY STANTON
