Archive.

Artist Residency: Maria Cecilia Reyes October 2022, Skövde

We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Maria Cecilia Reyes (https://www.xehreyes.net/) as the Future Media Theaters scholar-artist in residence for the month of October in Skövde, Sweden. Dr. Reyes is a Colombian researcher and screenwriter, working in immersive media such as VR and interactive narrative. She holds a double PhD degree in Digital Humanities from the University of Genoa (Italy) and in Communication Sciences from Universidad del Norte (Colombia). Her research focuses on interactive digital narratives, immersive technologies, and film and media theory.

During Dr. Reyes' residency she will collaborate on the development of the Future Media Theaters immersive 360-degree VR cave platform, helping to create a workflow for porting VR artworks designed for HMD interfaces to this room-scale system. Dr. Reyes will also share her expertise in methods of VR filmmaking and interactive narrative design with both the GAME Lab Research Group, and with the University of Skövde Game Development students in the Interactive Performance and Games course, and visit Future Media Theaters partner organisation Folkteatern Gothenburg to consult on the development of their VR theater initiative. 

Performance: Infinite Chorus October 28, 2022, 7pm at PlayLab, Skövde
Maria Cecilia Reyes presents Infinite Chorus, a large-scale immersive VR film presented in the PlayLab custom 360 screen system. Infinite Chorus combines traditional Cumbia music with 360 footage created in collaboration with the youth of Skövde, to present a reflection on the multiplicity of voices present in cultural heritage today.

Infinite Chorus is an evolution of the project "In the beginning there was Cumbia" presented at Akademie Schloss Solitude in 2021, produced by MUCHAJAGUA collective. MUCHAJAGUA is formed by María Cecilia Reyes, musicians Marlon Peroza and Julián Sarmiento (El hijo del búho), and performer Carlos Monroy (Colombia).

This event is free and open to the public. PlayLab is located on the top floor of Skövde's Kulturlabbet. 

Masterclass: Interactive Fiction & VR October 15, 2022, Gothenburg

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Future Media Theaters Showcase  Friday, June 3 - Saturday June 4, 2022

Co-Presented with the Skövde Art Museum and Skövde Kulturlabbet, this Future Media Theaters showcase is free & open to the public, and presents a series of interactive and immersive media performance works, as part of the grand opening of the new Kulturlabbet facility in Downtown Skövde, which will be the home to a new high-tech media performance research, art, and community space called PlayLab. 

Kulturlabbet, Eric Ugglas plats 1, Skövde

FRIDAY June 3rd

11.00 PlayLab Opens
Interactive and immersive artworks on display from María Cecila Reyes, Ismaila Jallow, Göteborgsoperan, Francisco Garcia Rivera & Alessandro Mucci

13.00 Welcome Presentation
Lars Kristensen and Rebecca Rouse (Högskolan i Skövde), and Thomas Oldrell (Skövde Konstmuseet)
13.15-14.00 Artist Panel Discussion
María Cecilia Reyes, Ismailia Jallow, Lars Bröndum, and Johan Bandholtz (Moderator: Rebecca Rouse)

14.15-15.00 Local Stakeholder Panel Discussion
Mats Jägstram—Science Park Skövde, Ramona Nilsson—Skövde Kommun, Johan Almer—Högskolan i Skövde, and Mats Olsson—Next Skövde (Moderators: Jenny Skarstedt & Thomas Oldrell)

15.15-17.00 Live Performances
Digital performance works live from Lars Bröndom, Jamie Fawcus, Anna Näsström & Johan Bandholtz

SATURDAY June 4th

11.00-12.00: Sound work from Jamie Fawcus & Lissa Holloway-Attaway
13:15-15:00: VR theater work from Folkteatern
15:15-17:00: Immersive 360 film from María Cecilia Reyes

Performance  "Missing Pieces" LARP Thursday, June 2, 2022, 4:00pm - 6:00pm CET

The students of University of Skövde's Game Writing program course "Interactive Performance and Games," taught by Rebecca Rouse, Louise Persson, and with guest instruction from Dr. María Cecilia Reyes and Thomas Oldrell, will present their original interactive performance work at the Skövde Art Museum.

​Free and open to the public -- come join us at the Skövde Art Museum and join in to play along!

Visit the official project website here, to start to get engaged in the storyworld of Missing Pieces!

Read an article about the course and the project here in Swedish.
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Future/Dreaming Salon #7  Wednesday, May 11, 2022, 8:00pm - 10:00pm CET

Our seventh future/dreaming salon looked at the intersection of games, immersive media, and theater. The salon was hosted by Dr. María Cecilia Reyes, and featured conversation with a group of scholars, artists, and community organizers working at this nexus, including Dan Barnard, Astrid Breel, Gabriele Sofia, Theresa Jean Tanenbaum, and Josefin Westborg. 

Future/Dreaming Salon #6  Wednesday, April 27, 2022, 5:00pm - 7:00pm CET

Our sixth future/dreaming salon focused on the future of education and training for Future Media Theaters. The salon was hosted by Rebecca Rouse, and featured conversation with a group of educators, researchers, artists, and technicians working in media theater including Diana Alvarez, Khamlane Halsackda, Scott Palmer, Maria Reihs, Carl Rosengren, and Roberto Sifuentes.

Seminar #2 Thursday, April 21 2022, 10:00 - 17:00, University of Skövde
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Interactive Dramaturgies, Performance & Games

The second Future Media Theaters seminar focused on the intersections between interactive dramaturgies, performance, and games with a series of presentations and discussions featuring Sharon Clark, Mindy Drapsa, Nina Jacques, and David Z. Saltz. This event was free and open to the public, and took place at University of Skövde's Portalen building, in the Insikten room on the ground floor. 
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Sharon Clark
​Creative Director, Raucous
Senior Lecturer in Writing for Performance & Immersion, University of West England, Bristol, England

Digital Dramaturgy of Performance
With digital technology and mixed realities being applied in the creation of a diverse range of live forms and disciplines there is much discussion around the notion of Digital Dramaturgy. But what does this term actually mean? How does it present itself in practice? Does this role directly affect an audience's experience? Or is it just another invented term for something that is already inbuilt in processes? Sharon Clark will discuss these questions in light of her work with her company Raucous and her current research into transdisciplinary immersive performance with mixed realities.

Mindy Drapsa
Artistic Director, Riksteatern CREA
Stockholm, Sweden

Riksteatern CREA Group and Challenges for Sign Language Theatre
This talk will focus on the historical development as well as pointing toward the future development of the division of sign language performance with Riksteatern. Sign language theater has excited in Sweden for half a century with many significant performances and plays, some of which this talk will focus on. What are the challenges and the possibilities of digital technology for a theater group like CREA: this is what will be the central theme of this talk. 

Nina Jacques
Dramaturge and Director, The National Theatre of The Czech Republic
Prague, Czech Republic

Experiences working with The Czech National Theatre and as an independent dramaturg
Nina Jacques is on an exchange workplace program with Folkteatern in Gothenburg, from the National Theatre in Prague. She will in this presentation talk about her own experience as a dramaturg working with various productions with independent as well as established companies, concentrating on interactivity with different audiences.

David Z. Saltz
Professor and Department Head, Theatre & Film Studies
Executive Director, Ideas for Creative Exploration
​University of Georgia, USA

Why Mixing Theatre and Film is More Challenging--And More Transformative--Than it Seems
Theatre and film are closely related art forms. In both, actors embody fictional characters to act out stories. At the same time, there are many important differences between the two mediums. One of the most significant and least explored of these differences is that they represent the worlds they depict in radically different ways. As I have argued in the past, film is primarily a pictorial medium. Theatre, by contrast, is what I call a "ludic" medium, that is to say, a medium rooted in the spirit of play and make-believe. In this presentation, I will elucidate this distinction and its significance, and focus on the special challenges and opportunities it presents to artists who produce work that combines flesh-and-blood performers and physical spaces with video, including media-enhanced theatre and augmented reality projects. 

Performance Modern Times, March 5 - April 29, 2022 - Folkteatern Gothenburg

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World Premiere March 5, 2022 at Folkteatern Gothenburg, Main Stage, with performances through April 29

by Charlie Chaplin in a free adaptation written & directed by Erik Holmström
Produced by Folkteatern Gothenburg
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Take a powerwalk on the assembly line
You are standing by the conveyor belt. You screw mechanically. Screw after screw after screw until you get screwed. You are physically broken. A weak link in the big machinery. Which makes consumption spin. You are mass production. The growing economy. You're a guinea pig. You get enough. You stand at the front of the line. With red flag. For an eight-hour workday. You're fighting. You are fascinated by the pace. You love your job. You are your job. You adapt. You are the middle manager. Then you are between jobs. You're the driver. You are a foodie on a bicycle. You are valued on the basis of treatment. You call yourself a micro-entrepreneur. You are mentally broken. You are without insurance. It's just you. Nothing we. You keep fighting. So you can visit an old factory and buy expensive sour beer. You take a powerwalk on the treadmill. And dreams of another world. You go to the theater. You're thinking. 

Holmström's  Modern Times  will be a condensed all - night performance with extra everything that will revolve around the view of work, how this has changed and how this affects our lives and relationships. With unmistakable Holmström humor and completely without puppets, he now tackles one of film history's most iconic works.
- This Modern Times becomes a chorus of brands and employment contracts, a throng of voices, confessions and dreams that revolve around work and everything that surrounds it. A spawn of careers, life choices, self-realization and self-help. Think brutal contrasts, far too loud and far too low-pitched, sometimes derailed and sometimes meticulously precise, says Erik Holmström.

Erik Holmström has run Malmö Puppet Theater since 2014 and before that he was artistic director of Turteatern in Stockholm. Erik Holmström has received several awards and nominations, for example the Swedish Theater Critics' Association's Theater Prize 2018, Kvällposten's Thalia Prize 2018 and the Gold Bag nomination in the category Best Short Film for "We just obey" . In addition, his and Malmö Puppet Theatre's production "Skvalpet" was  selected for the 2019 Performing Arts Biennale.

Live Salon Event Saturday, April 9, 2022, 6:00pm CET at Folkteatern

This in-person salon event was presented at the Folkteatern in Gothenburg. The evening offered a concert with The Aleatoric Chamber Ensemble "A Concerto on an Aleatoric Anthem" - award-winning electro-acoustic music and computer generation, and, as usual, several presentations with thoughts on new forms of storytelling:
Hedvig Jalhed - Opera and immersion
Josephine Rydberg - LARP and VR technology
Sandra Grehn - Masculinity, identity and youth theater
Thomas Oldrell - Media, art and performance

For more information visit here: https://www.folkteatern.se/evenemang/future-media-theaters-livesalong
This event was free and open to the public, no tickets were required.

Future/Dreaming Salon #5 Wednesday, March 8, 2022, 8:00pm - 10:00pm CET

Our fifth Future/Dreaming Salon focused on the politics of the moving image in future media theaters.  This salon was co-hosted by Lars Kristensen and Thomas Oldrell, and featured conversation with Zane Balčus, Laine Kristberga, Khanyisile Mbongwa, Olga Nikolaeva, Joachim Nordwall, Anna Backman Rogers, and Petra Weckström.

Open Rehearsal & Panel Tuesday, February 8, 2022, 6:30pm - 9:00pm CET
Hybrid: på plats och online
Språk: på svenska
Välkommen till ett publiksamtal om teater, teknologi och Moderna Tider. Vi ställer frågan “har vi någonsin varit moderna?” i ett samtal om teknikens utveckling inom performance-konsten. Vart är vi på väg? Vilka hinder/möjligheter ser vi? Vilka möten ser vi i scenkonsten i en post-digital konvergenskultur? I ett modernt samtal, på en modern teater, i en modern stadsdel av Göteborg diskuterar vi dessa frågor tillsammans med Petra Weckström från Riksteatern och Louise Persson från Högskolan i Skövde. Petra Weckström är chef för Riksteatern Teknik & Ateljéer. VD på Länsteatern i Örebro mellan 2014-2021. Petra arbetade även tidigare på Riksteatern, då på Riksteatern Crea och Barn & Unga. Hon är aknuten till det tvärvetenskapliga forskningsnätverket CCD (Communication, Culture and Diversity) vid Jönköping University sedan 2012. Louise Persson är programansvarig för Game Writing på Högskolan i Skövde. Hon har tidigare erfarenhet från teater- och rollspelsscenen och jobbar både akademisk och kreativt inom dataspelsutveckling. Samtalet modereras av Lotta Lekvall, VD på Folkteatern.​

Future/Dreaming Salon #4 Tuesday, February 8, 2022, 8:00pm - 10:00pm CET

Our fourth Future/Dreaming Salon focused around themes of how we might imagine future media theaters' collaborations with industry and academia. This salon was hosted by Marc Destefano, and featured conversation with Tony Bhajam, Harriet Bolwell, Mats Erixon, Ian Garrett, Jennifer Kokai, and Miha Turšič.

Future/Dreaming Salon #3 Wednesday, January 12, 2022, 8:00pm - 10:00pm CET

Our third Future/Dreaming Salon focused around themes of how we might imagine future media theaters to be structured in terms of economic models, labor conditions, and accessibility. This salon was hosted by Jared Mezzocchi, and featured conversation with Rachel Briscoe, Jenny Koons, Thomas Oldrell, Brendan Padgett, and Paula Varjack-Lowry.

Seminar #1 Thursday, December 16 2021, 6pm - 8pm CET, open to join via Zoom
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Interactive Narrative, Performance & Games

Our first seminar featured current research at the intersection of interactive narrative, performance, and games, presented by Ágnes Karolina Bakk and Joshua A. Fisher.

Future/Dreaming Salon #2 Wednesday, December 8 2021, 8pm - 10pm CET

Our second Future/Dreaming Salon focused around themes of embodiment and sonification in future media theaters. The salon was hosted by Matthew O'Hare and will featured conversation with Israel Aloni, Lars Bröndum, Tina Eriksson-Fredriksson, Melissa Shaginoff, and Josh Higgason.

Associated Event: Technology & Creativity Symposium and Open House Thursday, November 18 2021 - Saturday, 20 2021

A broad range of events were offered both at the Skövde Kulturhus, produced by Riksteatern, as well as academic presentations through the University of Skövde. Visit the Kulturhus website for more information on performances and workshops: https://kulturiskovde.se/nyhetslista/save-the-date---teknologi-och-skapande/

Events included workshop and discussion with Olle Essvik, Gothenburg artist presenting "Long Live Death" exhibition:
www.vastsverige.com/skovde/evenemang/lange-leve-doden-olle-essvik---rojal-forlag-/

Future/Dreaming Salon #1 Wednesday, October 13 2021, 8pm - 10pm CET

Our first Future/Dreaming Salon focused around themes of how we might imagine future media theaters, with respect to possibilities for collaboration across professional theater, academic research, and industry. The salon was hosted by Lotta Lekvall in collaboration with Anna Takanen, and featured conversation with Sarah Bay Cheng, Ingrid Cogne, Sarah Ellis, Lissa Holloway-Attaway, and Meike Wagner.
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