Telematic performance refers to the creative practice of collaboratively performing a piece of art, dance, music, or else with the performers being located at two or more geographically remote locations, yet connect by means of telecommunication and/or IT.
In difference to traditional performance formats telematic performances don’t necessarily focus on the communication/relation/interplay between the performers, but instead put the physical nature of the telematic situation – i.e. physical (and cultural) distance, and theoretical and practical issues of communication technologies – at the centre of their considerations.
“There are two issues here – one, establishing functional equality so that performers have equal effectiveness wherever they might be located, and can be aware of each other in useful ways, and two, to be seen to be equal. The first requires a technological solution, while the other is more complex, and revolves around the need to establish the possibility of a sculptural presence for the physically absent. That is, to embed the visual and aural information about people and spaces on the other side of the world into the physical presence of the room where the audience is, to turn electronic impulses into more than a purely visual or aural experience.” (Julian Maynard Smith, 2014)
Telematic performances thus may provide valid and valuable case studies on ideas, approaches and models that exploit the possibilities and potentials of being distributed across the world in real time, rather than lamenting the problems and limitations that comes therewith.
Reference:
Pauline Oliveros, Sarah Weaver, Marc Dresser et.al. “Telematic Music: Six Perspectives”. In Leonardo Music Journal 19 (2009).
