Mobilise/Demobilise: cyberformance collaboration gets moving

UpStage is delighted to announce that its new project Mobilise/Demobilise has been selected to receive EU funding in the Creative Europe Cooperation Projects programme. The project will be realised in collaboration with Teater Interakt (Sweden), Schaumbad -Freies Atelierhaus Graz (Austria) and the Centre for the Cultivation of Technology (Germany).

Mobilise/Demobilise comprises a series of networked performances and the development of an updated “mobilised” platform for live online performances. Thematically, the project addresses human mobility within the contemporary political and environmental context, and the impact of mobile technologies on human life and the environment.

Mobilise/Demobilise is an artistic and discursive response to a world of increasing conflict, crisis and emergency. The Covid19 pandemic makes this project timely and urgent: communication, connection and culture rapidly evolving as lockdowns and travel restrictions force us to live more and more of our lives online. Mobilise/Demobilise brings a critical and artistic perspective to this current crisis.

Artistic partners UpStage, Teater Interakt and Schaumbad – Freies Atelierhaus Graz will collaboratively investigate the theme and develop a series of interactive online performances, to be presented in April-May 2021. Alongside the creative process, the UpStage platform will be “mobilised” – re-engineered to function on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets – and brought up-to-date with current internet technologies. The project is managed in partnership with the Center for the Cultivation of Technology.

Download this media release in PDF format.

About the Partners:

UpStage is an online platform for cyberformance (networked performance) and an international community of artists. The platform was first developed in Aotearoa New Zealand in 2003 and since then has hosted many online festivals, performances and events.

Teater Interakt is a documentary theatre company based in Malmö, Sweden, that works intensively with refugees, migrants and people in the asylum process.

Schaumbad – Freies Atelierhaus Graz is a multi-disciplinary artists’ collective in Graz, Austria that organises festivals, events and intercultural exchanges.

The Center for the Cultivation of Technology acts as a host organisation for international free software projects, providing organisational infrastructure.