Digital media has changed and continues to affect and deeply transform the ways we live, work and play. We walk through cities holding semi-private conversations by voice or text with people who are miles away, we navigate by GPS, we look to screens for interaction sometimes as often as we see into someone else’s eyes. Integration of digital technology into various kinds of performance and installation art is a natural reflection of this state. With thirty years of development behind it, it is time to examine, debate and celebrate the intersection of digital media and performing arts.
GLAZ has conceived and developed the idea of DIGITAL STAGES festival as an international creative platform in London for sharing and developing new work in technology and performing arts. The festival has two central aims: to broaden the general awareness about the integration of digital technology into creative processes; and to create a platform for artistic and intellectual exchange.
Envisaged as a sustainable project that runs annually DIGITAL STAGES also aims to challenge audience’s preconceptions and to introduce people to areas of the arts that they might not necessarily be familiar with. To explore how the combining of different types of performance with digital media can work together to create new viewing experiences and to let the audiences engage into practical interaction with digital technology by making their own artwork.