empathy and intimacy in networked performances

propinquity, cross-reality, tele-presence, synaesthesia, ideasthesia

After reading Frans de Waal’s book on The Bonobo and the Athesist, I wondered if it would help me to better understand what is happening in networked webcam performance thinking about it in terms of empathy. So I wrote a status :

Would “empathy” be a word to describe what is needed (put at stake) in networked webcam performances?
The discussion this triggered made me realise a lot had happened since we organised the CyPosium in 2012. There seems to be a very lively bunch of people, with new approaches and ways of thinking, working in this field.

Participants :
Suzon Fuks – Waterwheel platform
Daniel Pinhero and Lisa Parra of LAND project
Helen Varley Jamieson – Upstage platform
Ienke Kastelein artist – performer
Martina Ruhsam performer – choreographer
Michael Baird musician
Roger Mills director of ethernet orchestra
Randall Packer of postREALITY.tv
Sara Malinarich from the Intact project
Jason Crouch of Contact Manchester
Jesse Ricke of CultureHub New York.

I screencaptured the whole thread and post it here as 12 .jpg’s. (interesting links to videos, discussions, academic approaches and practice)

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After the discussion we started a closed facebook group. If you are interested, please ask to join us, you are very welcome.

The propinquity effect is the tendency for people to form friendships or romantic relationships with those whom they encounter often, forming a bond between subject and friend. Feeling close in networked performance might depend on “the percieved feedback”.

The public can’t be an object/subject for empathy, there are too many different people inside it – empathic skills projected on a public easily become manipulative, become something else.

Physical distance between the persons performing and also between them and the persons watching does allow for intimacy in a very special way. Maybe the intimacy is even connected to a shared sense of awkwardness that the situation implies.

Empathy is a quality, a capacity of one person (as is intelligence, sensibility), not something between persons / it is the capacity “a receptiveness to the rhythms, energy, utterances of the other person” – it is a prerequisite for intimacy.

Rather than empathy it’s about a process of increasing synaesthesia.

What telepresents CAN NOT be present, but we cling stubbornly to this utopia. (Jorge Ruiz Abanades)

Maybe one day there will be another CyPosium …

Filed under: performance, cyposium, Daniel Pinheiro, empathy, Helen Varley Jamieson, Ienke Kastelein, Intimacy, Jason Crouch, Jesse Ricke, Jorge Ruiz Abanade, Lisa Parra, Martina Ruhsam, networked performance, propinquity, Randall Packer, Roger Mills, Sara Malinarich, Suzon Fuks, tele-presence

Press Release CyPosium – the book

New Book Explores Live Performance on the Internet

A new book exploring the field of cyberformance – live performance events that connect remote participants via the internet – offers a variety of perspectives on this multi-disciplinary live art form.

CyPosium – the book has been edited by Annie Abrahams and Helen Varley Jamieson.
Its contributors are Adriene Jenik, Alan Sondheim, Alberto Vazquez, Annie Abrahams, Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn, Cherry Truluck, Clara Gomes, Helen Varley Jamieson, James Cunningham, Joseph DeLappe, Liz Bryce, Maria Chatzichristodoulou, Maja Delak and Luka Prinčič, Miljana Perić, Rob Myers, Roger Mills, Ruth Catlow, Stephen A. Schrum and Suzon Fuks.

CyPosium – the book is published by Link Editions, in partnership with La Panacée, Montpellier, as part of “Open”, a series of catalogues, essay collections and pamphlets co-published with partner institutions. It is available as a print-on-demand paperback, e-book and downloadable PDF.

CyPosium – the book presents selected material from the CyPosium, a one-day online symposium organised in October 2012 to discuss cyberformance. Artists from a range of backgrounds have experimented in this field for as long as they have had access to the internet, and the CyPosium sought to remember and celebrate some of this ephemeral and pioneering work.The 12-hour event consisted of online presentations and facilitated discussions, and attracted an audience from around the world who engaged in a lively, vibrant real-time conversation.
CyPosium – the book continues and expands on this discussion by presenting texts, chat log excerpts, discussion transcripts, edited email conversations, creative chat excerpt essays and illustrations from the event, along with responses to the event.

CyPosium – the book will be of interest to practitioners, students and researchers of digital and online arts. While its focus is live performance, the contributors hail from a wide range of practice both online and offline, and their writing illustrates the hybrid nature of contemporary arts involving digital technologies. Music, dance, poetry, sound art and the visual arts all feature, as well as entertainment and social practices such as computer games, virtual worlds and online dating. Common themes that emerged during the CyPosium are also present in the book, such as the changing role of the audience; intimacy in the online environment; and mortality. This breadth of form and content reflects the ever-increasing ubiquity of the internet and digital technologies in our daily lives as well as our arts practices.

Order your copy via Lulu or Amazon: linkeditions.tumblr.com/cyposium

Read the ebook on issuu

Downloadable PDF on linkartcenter.eu

For further information contact:
Helen Varley Jamieson ( helenatcreative-catalyst.com ) and / or Annie Abrahams ( bram.orgatgmail.com )

Filed under: Event, Adriene Jenik, Alan Sondheim, Alberto Vazquez, Auriea Harvey, Cherry Truluck, Clara Gomes, cyposium, Helen Varley Jamieson, James Cunningham, Joseph DeLappe, la Panacée, Link editions, Liz Bryce, Maja Delak & Luka Princic, Maria Chatzichristodoulou, Michaël Samyn, Miljana Perić, press release, Rob Myers, Roger Mills, Ruth Catlow, Stephen A. Schrum, Suzon Fuks

CyPosium the book Launch

The net artists Gretta Louw and Helen Varley Jamieson warmly invite you to PLATFORM (Munich) for an evening of networked performance: an exhibition tour and the launch of CyPosium – the book, with online performative readings.
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Friday 12 Dezember, 19:00
Gastatelier, PLATFORM
Kistlerhofstr. 70 > Haus 60 > 3. Stock
81379 München

Join the event online from 7.45 PM : this link will be live 15 min­utes before show­time.

The read­ers are: Alberto Vazquez (Argentina), Annie Abra­hams (France), Christina Papa­gian­nouli (UK), Clara Gomes (Por­tu­gal), Helen Var­ley Jamieson (Ger­many), James Cun­ning­ham (Aus­tralia), Liz Bryce (Aotearoa New Zealand), Mil­jana Perić (Ser­bia), Nathalie Fougeras (Swe­den) and Vicki Smith (Aotearoa New Zealand).

Edited by Annie Abrahams and Helen Varley Jamieson, CyPosium- the book presents selected material from the CyPosium, a one-day symposium held in 2012 to discuss cyberformance. The book is published by Link Editions in partnership with La Panacée (Montpellier). It is avail­able as a free pdf or full colour hard copy.

The contributors of the book are Adriene Jenik, Alan Sondheim, Alberto Vazquez, Annie Abrahams, Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn, Cherry Truluck, Clara Gomes, Helen Varley Jamieson, James Cunningham, Joseph DeLappe, Liz Bryce, Maria Chatzichristodoulou, Maja Delak and Luka Prinčič, Miljana Perić, Rob Myers, Roger Mills, Ruth Catlow, Stephen A. Schrum and Suzon Fuks. Some of these contributors, and organisers of the CyPosium, will appear live on Friday evening from their locations around the world, to read extracts from the book.

Down­load the press release.

The book launch is organised in the frame of the exhibition Net Work, curated by Gretta Louw. This exhibition deals with work that is located at the intersection of performance and net art. The emerging genre of networked performance makes strong statements about the development of art history, and also about our relationship to technology and its impact on culture, society, labor and psychology.

Filed under: Articles / Texts, Event, Exhibition, Net art, performance, Alberto Vazquez, Christina Papa­gian­nouli, Clara Gomes, cyposium, Gretta Louw, Helen Varley Jamieson, James Cun­ning­ham, Mil­jana Perić, Nathalie Fougeras, Net Work, Platform, Vicki Smith

Cyberformance Manifesto Writing Performance

LIVE CYBERFORMANCE MANIFESTO WRITING
While editing the upcoming book on the first Cyposium, we (Helen Varley Jamieson, Clara Gomes and me) noticed that Helen’s manifesto (http://creative-catalyst.com/thesis.html) from 2008 triggered discussion and needed some updating.
So we organised a collectif writing session on a piratepad and asked the participants of this Cyposium to write, discuss and battle the concept of Cyberformance with us.
Approximate time 1 hour.

Tuesday 26 march, at 9pm CET,.
http://piratepad.net/kyryJZxb6

Rules:
– before the performance, please read the manifesto http://piratepad.net/kyryJZxb6y
– try to keep discussion on particular points in the space after that point of the manifesto
– anything can be changed, including the rules.

We had an exhilirating and thoughtprovoking writing session. You can still see the result on the piratepad. Please use the timeslider (top right) to see the history of the writing process.

Filed under: Collective writing, Performance, cyberformance, cyposium, piratepad