On Thursday 26 January 2023 (or 27th, depending on where you are in the world), Eva Ursprung along with Vicki Smith and Helen Varley Jamieson gave a performance-lecture “Cyberformance on UpStage” online and in St. Pölten (Austria), as part pf the DigiDic programme organised by the Institute for Media Archeology.

Here is a recording of the presentation; scroll down for a written report.

Digidic is a critical and artistic examination of the digital world, through an exhibition at the Stadtmuseum in St Pölten, a symposium, and a programme of supporting events. Under the title “When the Net was still Young: And what about the Future?” a series of lecture-performances recalled the early utopias of the internet, analyse the status quo and spin into the future.

“Cyberformance in UpStage” told the story of how UpStage came to be, beginning with the meeting in 2001 of the four women who became the globally dispersed cyberformance troupe Avatar Body Collision. Frustrated by the limitations of software that was designed for other purposes, they began to imagine a purpose-built application, made by and for artists. The result is UpStage: browser-based, open source, cross-platform, accessible for audiences and easy to use. The platform was first developed in Aotearoa New Zealand in 2003 and since then has hosted many online festivals, performances and events. From 2021 it has been re-engineered to bring it up to date with current internet and mobile technologies. The lecture/performance was a time-travel from the very beginnings up to the planned space flight to demonstrate against mining the moon. Eva Ursprung, in the Stadtmuseum with the proximal audience, asked Helen and Vicki questions and connected the presentation to the topics of the symposium.

There was a good audience in the space as well as 9 online audience. As the start of the presentation was delayed (due to many questions after the previous presentation), Helen and Vicki chatted with the online audience and Eva showed the space through her webcam and translated parts of the discussion.

Feedback from audience at the symposium was quite diverse. While some people had not really understood the technical side of UpStage and required further explanation from Eva, others understood very well. There was curiousity about the online audience, and about how others’ work could be presented in UpStage, and one audience member – a professor at the faculty of computer science of the University of Vienna described UpStage as a “major revelation” for him, and how he had never thought of the “stage” in this way.