From Artificial Intelligence (AI) infused performances to bench marking accessibility standards, the Festival of Live Digital Art (FOLDA) 2024 pushes boundaries in the arts.
FOLDA is a captivating series of artistic performances that push the boundaries of various mediums and delve into the intersection between art and technology, showcasing Kingston’s finest talents. The annual celebration, held from June 13 to 15, featured a rich tapestry of performances, s, and installations that were future – focused and connected through creativity.
FOLDA began in 2018, with 2024 marking its eighth year. This year, the festival was co-curated by Adrienne Wong, Michael Wheeler, and Marcel Stewart. The curators seek out artists who exemplify innovative uses of technology to engage audiences, share their narratives, and tell their stories.
PLAY: A book launch
This event gave the audiences an insider look at Jenn Stephenson and Mariah Horner’s new book, PLAY: Dramaturgies of Participation, with illustrations by Jeff McGilton. The book contains a series of mini-essays that analyze different performances, examining the inner workings of participation. Its innovative approach to academic analysis aligns with FOLDA’s values of creativity, inclusivity, exploration, leadership, and fun
“The big message of the book is that participation matters ,” Stephenson said in an interview with The Journal. She went on to speak about how agency and engagement have the potential to be “really politically powerful.”
Though deeply scholarly, PLAY: Dramaturgies of Participation challenges its audience to have fun. Through its blog-style entries, readers are prompted to tear pages out, choose their own adventure, and even play a game of mad libs, learning all the while.
“It’s in the title, it’s called PLAY. And the play comes with participating in the puzzles in the book, but also the play is an invitation to follow your curiosity as you read, ” Horner said in an interview with The Journal.
Artificial intelligence in creative performance
The Artificial Intelligence in Creative Performance featured discussions with David Rokeby, director of the BMO lab for creative research in the arts, performance, emerging technologies and AI at the Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance Studies at the University of Toronto, and Cole Lewis Co-Artistic Director of Guilty by Association— during which they discussed how they incorporate AI in their creative work.
The audience was encouraged to explore philosophical questions through language prompts for playwriting using ChatGPT while wearing motion capture suits during rehearsals. Later, they were invited to interact with an AI recreation of Lewis’s late father.
“My father loved technology, memorializing him as technology is something that would’ve been right up his alley. He would’ve loved feeding himself into an AI machine to see what kind of version of himself it would create,” Lewis said in an interview with The Journal.
Lewis engaged with this intersection of art and tech by using AI to explore language structure and create an AI version of her father, Brian. Her extensive experiences in drama helped her to effectively prompt the AI to draw out her father’s voice.
Performances raised ethical dilemmas, prompting deep reflections on human nature and its trajectory.
SmartSmart
In the performance of SmartSmart, Wong amusingly explores the concept of smartphones, asking the audience to name their phones and make outfits for them using various craft materials.
Dres the phones in costumes brought a light and silly atmosphere whilst discussing modern technology, a topic that can often be quite daunting and anxiety-inducing according to Wong.
Wong encourages the audience to reflect on our frequent, often unconscious use of smartphones.
The performance encouraged audience to leave their phone notifications on, calling attention to the disruptive nature of the technology we carry with us every day.
“My intention initially when I started working on the project was I thought it would be funny to do a performance for smartphones because whenever you’re in a movie theatre, people’s phones are always going off so what if the show was for the phones?” Wong said. Toward the end of the performance, Wong asked the audience to leave and performed a monologue directed to the audience’s cell phones to bring together the ancient practice of theatre that began around the 5th century BCE a nd modern technology like our iPhones.
Performing for the phones transcended typical theatre boundaries by prioritizing our technology that’s constantly attached to us while simultaneously calling attention to the constant evolution of our practices as humans.
Mash Up: Explorations of creative access in performance art
Mash Up, disability led collaboration, seamlessly integrated aerial arts technology, and music into a stunning show that emphasized the significance of accessibility for everyone. Featuring Erin Ball, Maxime Beauregard, Andrew Heule, Gaitrie Persaud-Killings, and Jaideep Goray, the evening spotlighted the need for accessibility within performing arts.
Mash Up established a new benchmark for accessibility in the arts with its deliberate pace, masked attendees, live stream options, scheduled breaks, ASL interpretation available both online and in-person, and relaxed environment for its audiences—with the hope that this becomes standard practice in the arts community.
“Every human being has access needs, and the current standard is really low. Why it’s so important is so that we can be better, take better care of ourselves and each other, and also welcome more people in,” Ball said in an interview with The Journal.
The festival ended leaving its audiences curious about how the role of technology and digitization will continue to evolve within the arts as our society continues to modernize.
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