Chris Joseph Electronic writer and artist

IOCT Salon: Toni Sant, Performance in Second Life, Leicester, 28 February 2008, 6.00pm – 7.15pm

www.ioctsalon.com

Toni Sant: A Second Life for Online Performance History

Doors open at 5.30pm for drinks. This event is free and open to the public, however places are limited – visit the cultural eXchanges website to reserve a seat.

Download the flyer for this event (PDF)

Toni Sant is exploring the 3-D online virtual environment called Second Life as a venue for performance by looking at examples of theatre groups performing online within Second Life. In addition to activities presented as theatre he is also observing broader performance activities within this online space. Additionally, this project involves an attempt to use Second Life as a pedagogical tool for generating an archive of work related to a history of performance on the Internet by relating it to previous work on other online virtual environments, such as IRC, MUDs, MOOs, and 2-D graphic chat networks like The Palace. Presently, the work revolves around a planned Second Life production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in one of three simulations of The Globe in this popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game.

This event takes place as part of cultural eXchanges, an annual event hosted by the Faculty of Humanities at De Montfort University. The week long programme includes lectures, performances, debates, presentations and readings from a diverse body of artists, academics, practioners and those working in the cultural industries. Previous guests have included Janet Street-Porter, Alastair Campbell, Andrew Davies, Corin Redgrave, Matthew Sweeney, Jenny Colgan, Sue Mcgregor, Roy Hattersley, Tony Hawks, Germaine Greer, Jackie Kay and Colin Dexter.

About Toni:

Dr Toni Sant is Lecturer in Performance and Creative Technologies at the University of Hull’s School of Arts and New Media on the Scarborough Campus. Since 1998 he has served as executive editor for the Applied and Interactive Theatre Guide. His writing has appeared in TDR: The Drama Review, Leonardo, the Encyclopedia of Politics, the Dictionary of Literary Biography, and other scholarly publications, as well as in the popular press in New York and Malta.

He is currently writing a book called A History of the Future: Franklin Furnace & the Spirit of the Avant-Garde. His blog and weekly podcast are available at www.tonisant.com and he can be found on Second Life as Not Merlin.

Links:

Toni Sant – www.tonisant.com

Second Life – www.secondlife.com

cultural eXchanges – www.dmu.ac.uk/culturalexchanges/

The IOCT Salon (www.ioctsalon.com) is held at and staged by De Montfort University and The Institute of Creative Technologies, and is supported by Arts Council England and the Literature Development Network. It is managed by Chris Joseph, Digital Writer in Residence at the Institute of Creative Technologies, De Montfort University. This residency is funded by Arts Council England: East Midlands. For further information about the IOCT Salon please email Chris: info [at] ioctsalon.com.

IOCT Salon: Andy Campbell and Dreaming Methods, Leicester, 31 January 2008, 6.00pm – 7.15pm

www.ioctsalon.com

Andy Campbell: Dreaming Methods – Digital Fiction

Doors open at 5.30pm for drinks. This event is free and open to the public, however places are limited – email info [at] ioctsalon.com to reserve a seat.

Download the flyer for this event (PDF)

Since the 1990′s Andy Campbell has experimented with the possibilities of writing fiction for the computer screen and, although most people still consider fiction something they’d read from a book, an explosion of blogs, online journals, text-based “web art” projects and the introduction of electronic portable reading devices has generated a new wave of mashed up narrative experiments and intrigued (often confused) audiences. Andy Campbell’s website Dreaming Methods combines fictional narratives with other media such as film, photography, animation and music. The results are highly challenging but compelling reading experiences that explore dream inspired states, the subconscious and the deterioration of memory. Projects are often visually haunting and atmospherically immersive where the text itself floats, mutates and gets entangled with motion graphics creating powerful ‘scenes’ throughout the ‘story’.

Experience recent Dreaming Methods projects on a big screen, including a preview of a new project “Clearance”, an apocalyptic digital fiction created by Andy Campbell and film-maker Judi Alston. The talk will include discussion around the possibilities of new forms of electronic narratives – from full-blown cinematic multimedia to exciting new e-book standards.