Transmedia Arts Seminar

metaLAB (at) Harvard is partnering with the Mahindra Humanities Center to sponsor the Transmedia Arts Seminar, chaired by metaLAB principal researcher, Magda Romanska and metaLAB affiliate Ramona Mosse. The seminar considers the intersection of contemporary art/theatre and new media technologies, taking up immersive, multisite, and networked modes of transmedia storytelling, performances instrumentalizing a range of live and digital platforms and formats, including social media, augmented and virtual reality, haptic and digital technology, visual and audio mapping, human/AI interaction, algorithms, and bodily and sensory enhancements.

For the 2023–24 academic year, all seminar meetings will take place on Zoom; for all details, see the schedule and registration links below. Previous seminars are now accessible with captions on YouTube.

Future Seminars: 2023 - 2024

• Nina Tecklenburg (Bard College Berlin, Germany), September 27, 2023 – 2 pm EST, 8 pm CET
  “AI as Performer”

• Ágnes Karolina Bakk (Innovation Center of Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Hungary), October 25, 2023 – 2 pm EST, 8 pm CET
  “Transmedia and Immersive Theatre in Central and Eastern Europe”

• Christopher Salter (Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), Switzerland), November 29, 2023 – 2 pm EST, 8 pm CET
  “Performing AI: Labor and Complexity on the Contemporary Stage”

• Alexander Nderitu (Writer, Theatre Critic, Kenya), January 24, 2023 – 2 pm EST, 8 pm CET
  “Digital Theatre in Africa: Use of Digital Technology in Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa”

• Lisa May Thomas (Centre for Sociodigital Futures, University of Bristol, U.K.), January 31, 2024 – 2 pm EST, 8 pm CET
  “Negotiating Difference in Soma, a Social VR Experience ”

• Katie Hawthorne (Theater Dortmund’s Academy for Theatre and Digitality, Germany), March 20, 2024 – 2 pm EST, 8 pm CET
  “Contextualizing Liveness: The Evolving Status of Live Performance in Europe”

• Panel: Future of Dance, April 24, 2024 - 2 pm EST, 8 pm CET

• Anna Gryszkiewicz (University of Gdansk, Poland), and Zhenhua Li (Artist, Curator, Beijing, China), May 8, 2024 – 2 pm EST, 8 pm CET
  “Understanding Metaverse Performance”

• Yvonne Schmidt (Bern Academy of the Arts in Bern, Switzerland), May 15, 2024 – 2 pm EST, 8 pm CET
  “Aesthetics of the Im/Mobile. Practicing Access, Togetherness, and Care in the Context of Performing Arts Festivals”

Past Seminars:

Available now with captions on YouTube:

2022-23 Seminars:

• Panel: Future of Opera, September 29, 5 pm EST, 11 pm CET

• Ramona Mosse (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany), October 28, 2022 – 12 pm EST, 6 pm CET
  “Documenting Viral Theatres”

• David Saltz (University of Georgia, U.S.A), December 9, 2022 - 12 pm EST, 6 pm CET
  “Mixing Theatre and Film”

• Sarah Bay-Cheng (York University in Toronto, Canada), January 27, 2023 - 12 pm EST, 6 pm CET
  “Data Drama: How Machine Audiences Reprogram Theatre”

• Carmen Gil Vrolijk (Universidad de Los Andes, Colombia), February 24, 2023 - 12 pm EST, 6 pm CET
  “The Inverted Theatre: Transmedia Is/As Hybrid”

• teamLab (Japan), March 31, 2023 - 10 am EST, 4 pm CET
  “Art by teamLab”

• Belén Santa-Olalla (Stroke114, Spain), April 28, 2023 - 12 pm EST, 6 pm CET
  “Immersing Audiences in Unforgettable Worlds: The Fusion of Transmedia Storytelling and Performing Arts”

• Kai Tuchmann and Anuja Ghosalkar, May 12, 2023 - 12 pm EST, 6 pm CET
  “Constructing Testimony in The Times of Pandemic”

2021-22 Seminars:

• Sarah Ellis (Royal Shakespeare Company, U.K.), September 30
  “Transmedia, Technology, and the Future of Theatre”

• Lance Weiler (Columbia University Digital Storytelling Lab, U.S.A.), October 28
  “Decentralized Storytelling - Where AI, the Blockchain, Code, and Metaverse Intersect”

• Members of the futureStage Research Group, November 19
  “futureStage Manifesto: New Scenarios for the Performing Arts”

• Kasia Lech (Canterbury Christ Church University and TheTheatreTimes.com, U.K.), December 2
  “Heteroglossia and Intelligibility in Transmedia Theatre”

• Robert Pratten (CEO and founder of Conducttr, U.K.), February 24
  “Transmedia Storytelling for Real-Life Rehearsal”

• Doris Kolesch (Freie Universitët Berlin, Germany), March 31
  “Being Alone/Together: Temporal Communities and Transmediality”

• Caroline Jones (MIT Department of Architecture, U.S.A.), April 28
  “What is Transmedia? Perspectives on Metaverse”

• Doris Kolesch (Freie Universitët Berlin, Germany), in conversation with Ben Walmsley (Leeds University, U.K), April 28
  “Convening Post/Pandemic Audiences”

• David Harradine (Fevered Sleep / Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, U.K), in conversation with Fintan Walsh, (University of London, U.K.), April 29
  “Pandemic Grief and Other Digital Feelings”

• Vicky Angelaki (Mid-Sweden University, Sweden), in conversation with Christiane Kühl (doublelucky productions, Germany), April 29
  “The Pandemic and the Anthropocene”

• Miriam Felton-Dansky (Bard College Annandale, U.S.A.), in conversation with Seda Ilter (Birkbeck, University of London, U.K.), April 30
  “From Mediaturgy to Virality - What Concepts Do We Need to Understand Post/Pandemic Performance?”

• Sarah Ellis (Royal Shakespeare Company, U.K.), Tina Lorenz (Staatstheater Augsburg, Germany), Björn Lengers (Cyberräuber, Germany), Chris Ziegler (movingimages.de, Germany), April 30
  Panel: “Building Virtual Stages - XR in Performance”

• Christian Rakow (Nachtkritik, Germany), Magda Romanska (metaLAB (at) Harvard), Ulf Otto (LMU, Germany), April 30
  Panel: “Theatre’s Hybrid Futures”

2020-21 Seminars:

• Magda Romanska (metaLAB, U.S.A.), Oct 9
  “Transmedia Dramaturgy of Pre- and Post-Pandemic Theatre”

• Francesca Ferrando (NYU, U.S.A.), October 23
  “Covid19, TransMedia and the Art of Posthuman Existence”

• Joris Weijdom (HKU University of the Arts Utrecht, Netherlands), November 19, 2020
  “Embodiment and Presence in Designing Performative Mixed-Reality Experiences”

• Agnieszka Jelewska & Michał Krawczak (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland), December 3, 2020
  “Spectral storytelling. Social Engagement Through Technology in Traumatized Environments.”

• Krisztina Rosner (Meiji University, Japan), February 18, 2021
  “Technology and Transmedia Dramaturgy in Contemporary Japanese Performing Arts”

• Lawrence Switzky (University of Toronto, Canada), March 23, 2021
  “’Playable Theatre’: On Gaming and Aesthetic Control”

• Jen Parker-Starbuck (Royal Holloway, University of London, U.K.), April 15, 2021
  “Animals in the Machine: Robotic Animal Agents”

• Panel: The Future of Transmedia Performance. May 14, 2021