Latency Now, Telematic Improv Workshop

An interwoven fabric of senses and data points is knit closely together into a constant flow of feedback loops, coalescing outside time, in a world that cherishes the state of NOW. 

The interdisciplinary workshop series Theatre of Making (TOM) focuses on real-time audiovisual improvisation by exploring how continually evolving artistic methods, media and processes overlap and are reconfigured to unfold a constant flow of visible, audible, and experiential events. These cross-media jam sessions engage all senses and abilities, synthesizing processes and outcomes into a live, durational, closely-knit total work of art. The work itself will span a range of disciplines from audio production to image-making, performance, visualization, choreography, critical costuming, graphic scoring, drawing, and writing.

In response to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in Europe from March 2020, the evolving group of TOM artists and students embarked on a series of performative audiovisual improv sessions via teleconferencing software, maxing-out the intrinsic functions of existing tools and transforming them into fertile ground for co-making and interplay. In this way, participants could recover what so many were missing most at that time: togetherness, and a sense of communal endeavor.

Drawing from the rich and diverse history of teleportal performance and internet art-making, the expanded group set out to develop a new type of real-time, procedural artistic research. Distinct methodologies were adopted during the sessions, and key insights generated during these sessions informed the fourth edition of Theatre of Making: Latency Now—Telematic Improv Workshop , held April 29-30 and May 2, 2020, and hosted by Tina Frank and Alex Murray-Leslie at the University of Art and Design Linz. TOM4 brought together students from the Departments of Interface Culture, Fashion & Technology and Visual Communication, and students from Trondheim Academy of Fine Art, NTNU (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) and a wide range of practicing artists across the globe.

The video installation Latency Now –part of Ars Electronica Festival’s CAMPUS exhibition– presents glimpses of the introductory talks, highlighting milestone moments from the history of online telematic improvisation and performance, and depicting workshop results. Accompanying the installation is a diagrammatic network including TOM contributors from the full series.