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networked art and experimentation with other cultural centers, wherever they may be around the globe. Here is some of what we learned from these experiments: • Staged telepresence requires three types of expertise in each place: online networking; digital audio-visual production; art and animation. The field of media art, where most of these expertises cross paths, is ideal for developing new forms of encounters, events and interactions through telepresence. • Using a standard platform accelerates knowledge-sharing and the creation of an international network for experimentation and distribution. This human and technological network also allows for performances that can “tour” through this network. • Different types of interconnexion can be combined: place to place, person to place, place to virtual space, etc. Exploring the possibilities of interaction between real, virtual and augmented spaces is fascinating. To be continued… • In a world where we are increasingly isolated and where we feel relatively anonymous in front of our personal screen, telepresence reactivates our reflexes regarding group behavior and face-to-face interaction. But the essential lesson, imposed by nature rather than technology, is the following: • All telepresence activity is composed of several parallel time-spaces that we try to synchronize. Connecting several “heres” at the speed of light implies that we also have several “nows”.
The digital network is global and synchronized. Humans, however, are local and cyclical. The geographical position of each place and its participants is necessarily linked to a culture, a language and a local solar time. In the case of public and cultural spaces, each has its own history and community. A better knowledge of the human and social biorhythms—the “here” and “now”—of those with whom we wish to connect is just as important as the quality of bandwidth and code.
Impact on types of interactions If the ubiquity of digital communication allows each one of us to spend and organize our personal time exactly as we wish, it’s another story when it comes to collective time-space. For example, if a performance taking place on a Sunday night in Montreal is connected by telepresence to a subway platform in Taipei (Sunday night in Montreal and Monday morning in Taipei), there is very little chance that the Taiwanese audience will participate unless we integrate the participation of commuters into the scene. The “third space” that is created by any form of telepresence activity will finally be situated in a time-space that has been negotiated or imposed according to the nature of existing connections, distances and protocols between the participants.
position of the participants. Along the East-West axis, the more time zones are crossed, the more complex the negotiations… Which participants will have to modify their social biorhythm in order to attend? What will be the etiquette for scheduling flexibility? Will there be an audience in each location? Along the North-South axis, negotiations to synchronize local schedules will be greatly simplified, as all the participants have the same personal and social biorhythm.
In a synchronous scenario implying the assembly of several humans, it is difficult to overrule the solar cycle. The possibilities of interaction must take into account the geographical
As the network reduces the distance to zero, the space separating several groups connected by telepresence is perceivable only through the lag in their biorhythms.
Dieu est un DJ, Falk Richter.
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