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