IMPACT Extends a Digital Tradition

In 1996, NYU participated in one of the earliest collaborative exchanges on the Internet, connecting via the older modem connections three sites: a group of actors from NYU, a group of dancers at Fraser University in Vancouver, and a group of musicians at a loft in Greenwich Village. The major sponsors of the event were the composer Dr. Dinu Ghezzo, composer Dr. John Gilbert, theatre dramaturg, Dr. Alistair Martin-Smith, choreographer dancer Lisa Naugle who has since completed her doctorate and is now Chair of the Dance Department at UCI, and Pierre DeKarangal, web artist and theorist, who also has since completed his doctoral study.

The groups improvised materials for each other to respond to based on the figure Cassandra, which we treated as the precursor of women in our contemporary culture. This issue continues to be urgent and perhaps even more relevant today with the oppression of women in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world and the violent suppression of freedom taking place in Iran.

We posted brief 30 -45 second improvisations which each group reacted to and posted their own responses. The collaboration was asynchronous, but encapsulated within a two hour period, so each response was posted as soon as improvised, and over the period we built up a wealth of materials. These materials (music, acting, and dancing) formed the basis of a live multimedia performance in Loewe Theatre, Spring, 1997.

Cassandra continued to be the inspiration for many of our productions over the years. What emerged from these productions was the spirit of improvisation, spontaneity, and the creation of new work through collaboration of new work using technology and the arts in a multimedia environment.

Three years ago, IMPACT emerged as an extension of this work, aimed primarily at international students during the summer and now opening to include students at college level who are ready to explore technology and how it can serve to extend and amplify their artistic expressive range.

I started playing with the design of a website that would bring together more than a decade of work in multimedia creative collaborative productions. One problem with art on the Internet and as digital material is that it can be somewhat ephemeral and elusive. The objects of the productions are subject to be relegated to anonymous archives that either no one knows about or remembers to visit. That is often because the artists move on to new creative challenges that continue to extend the techniques of collaborative interaction and invention. When one is always in the moment, history somehow seems...well you know...dated....archaic.

Here is what I have so far: IMPACT: Breaking Boundaries