POWER UP: Exploring the intersection of art & technology

Date:: Wed 15 Sep 2021
Time:: 15:00 - 17:30
Venue:: Online: Via Zoom
Admission:: Free for DI Members / €10 Non-Members

Advances in technology have created new ground to explore and create in the arts.
Live video and broadcast has become easier to implement presenting opportunities for building and maintaining new, worldwide audiences.
Virtual reality has allowed artists to step into virtual spaces that dreams are made of.

Developments in projection and automation technology have allowed artists to create spaces on the stage that react to the action.
Augmented reality has provided new opportunities for creating accessible performance and new opportunities for hybrid performance.

What Is Possible?
POWER UP brings together artists and technologists pushing the boundaries of art with technology.
If you are a producer, technologist, choreographer, technician and/or artist, this event is not to be missed.

Presentations by:
Alex Coulombe, Architect turned XR-chitect
Sarah Ellis, Director of Digital Development for the Royal Shakespeare Company
Jared Mezzocchi, Obie award winning director and multimedia designer, playwright, and actor
Brandon Powers, a creative director + choreographer who creates experiences across physical and virtual space

Followed by a Q&A with the presenters.

Produced by Kevin Michael Reed, Digital Producer for Dance Ireland supported by the Arts Council's Capacity Building Grant

Book Online Here

ABOUT the Speakers

Architect turned XR-chitect, Alex Coulombe has been creating theater (and theaters!) for over a decade. A consummate adopter of emerging tech, in 2013 he began utilizing virtual reality to help Fisher Dachs Associates design new venues. This soon led to helping existing venues such as the NYC Park Avenue Armory previz their live shows. In 2018 he assembled a diverse coalition of theater artists and technicians to study the most effective means of developing live VR performances, spanning topics from genre selection to avatar stylization to methods for audience engagement and retention. The results of these studies led to work on a number of pieces, including the Venice Film Festival’s very first live VR show viewable around the world, Loveseat, as well as the world's only ongoing live VR theater festival, OnBoardXR, which he recently co-presented to SIGGRAPH 2021. Currently, Alex and his creative studio Agile Lens are developing a new platform designed to immerse audiences interactively in live performances across a variety of devices (including VR) using cutting-edge cloud computing.

Sarah Ellis is an award-winning producer currently working as Director of Digital Development for the Royal Shakespeare Company to explore new artistic initiatives and partnerships. The latest partnership for the RSC is the Audience of the Future Live Performance Demonstrator funded by Innovate UK - a consortium consisting of arts organisations, research partners and technology companies to explore the future of performances and real-time immersive experiences. In 2017, she became a fellow of the University of Worcester for her work in the arts and technology.
In 2016 she was awarded The Hospital Club & Creatives Industries award for cross industry collaboration for her work on the RSC’s The Tempest in collaboration with Intel and in association with The Imaginarium Studios. In 2013 she was listed in the top 100 most influential people working in Gaming and Technology by The Hospital Club and Guardian Culture Professionals. In partnership with Google, she produced Midsummer Night’s Dreaming winning two Lovie Awards for Innovation and Experimentation. In 2012, she produced myShakespeare an online commissioning platform for the World Shakespeare Festival. In 2011, she produced Adelaide Road for the RSC, which mixed live performance with an app and website map.
As a spoken word producer, she has worked with the Old Vic Tunnels, Battersea Arts Centre, Birmingham REP, Contact, Improbable, Southbank Centre, Soho Theatre, and Shunt. She has been Head of Creative Programmes at the Albany Theatre and Programme Manager for Apples & Snakes. She commits to the development of the arts and technology sector by being a mentor and advisor to programmes such as the Sundance Institute's New Frontier Labs, Creative XR programme supported by Arts Council England and Digital Catapult and CPH:LABS.

Jared Mezzocchi is an Obie award winning director and multimedia designer, playwright, and actor. Mezzocchi’s work has spanned all throughout the United States at notable theaters such as: The Kennedy Center, The Geffen Playhouse, Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth (company member), and many more. In 2016, he received The Lucille Lortel and Henry Hewes Award for his work in Qui Nguyen’s Vietgone at the Manhattan Theatre Club.
In 2021, The New York Times highlighted his multimedia work in a spotlight article on his impact during the pandemic. His work was also celebrated as a New York Times Critic Pick on Sarah Gancher’s Russian Troll Farm (Co-Director & Multimedia Designer) where it was praised for being one of the first digitally native successes for virtual theater. Currently, Jared is creating a new work through his mini-commission at The Vineyard Theatre in New York City entitled On the Beauty of Loss. He is a two-time Macdowell Artist Fellow, a 2012 Princess Grace Award winner, and spends his summers as Producing Artistic Director of Andy’s Summer Playhouse. Outside of his artmaking, Jared is an Associate Professor at The University of Maryland, where he teaches in the MFA Design Program for the Projection and Multimedia Track and is Associate Director of the School for Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies as well as the Co-Director of the newly announced Brin Institute for New Performance.
Over the pandemic, Jared founded Virtual Design Collective (ViDCo), which has aided in the development of over 50 new digital works over the last 18 months. Brandon Powers is a creative director + choreographer who creates experiences across physical and virtual space. His work focuses on capturing liveness in the digital, building interdisciplinary communities, and shifting culture towards a more embodied future. To achieve this, Brandon used his knowledge as a movement practitioner to devise Embodiment Design, a methodology for designing more human-centered XR experiences. His key projects include VR saga Queerskins: ARK (Venice International Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, Cannes XR), for which he created interactive volumetric choreography, and Frankenstein AI (Sundance Film Festival), an AI-powered immersive installation and performance. On TikTok, Brandon has built a community of over 50,000, sharing his process and tips for becoming a creative professional. Brandon is a proud graduate of Northwestern University, NEW INC member, and associate producer at Musical Theatre Factory where he launched MTFxR, a program supporting XR musicals. He has spoken on the intersection of arts and technology at Creative Tech Week, the TCG Nationnal Conference, Verizon’s 5G Lab, Lincoln Center, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Brandon Powers is a creative director + choreographer who creates experiences across physical and virtual space. His work focuses on capturing liveness in the digital, building interdisciplinary communities, and shifting culture towards a more embodied future. To achieve this, Brandon used his knowledge as a movement practitioner to devise Embodiment Design, a methodology for designing more human-centered XR experiences. His key projects include VR saga Queerskins: ARK (Venice International Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, Cannes XR), for which he created interactive volumetric choreography, and Frankenstein AI (Sundance Film Festival), an AI-powered immersive installation and performance. On TikTok, Brandon has built a community of over 50,000, sharing his process and tips for becoming a creative professional. Brandon is a proud graduate of Northwestern University, NEW INC member, and associate producer at Musical Theatre Factory where he launched MTFxR, a program supporting XR musicals. He has spoken on the intersection of arts and technology at Creative Tech Week, the TCG National Conference, Verizon’s 5G Lab, Lincoln Center, and the National Endowment for the Arts.