Recently I came across a project claiming to be "the first live streamed video/play"; the project, which at the time of writing has not actually happened yet, is described thus: "Utilizing multiple cameras, Better Left Unsaid will be staged in front of a live audience in NYC, while simultaneously streamed live to the internet, allowing anyone anywhere in the world to watch the show, and interact with it."
But streaming live performances over the internet has been going on for years; my research suggests that the first streamed live performance using web cams was in 1994 (see the cyberformance timeline for this and other examples). It annoys me that someone has made a claim like this without doing their research, as it effectively consigns the earlier work to the dark and forgotten places of the internet. I can't do any more than I already am to ensure the visibility of this work, but I have of course emailed her to enlighten her. I wish her well with her project, but I hope that she stops falsley promoting it in this way and perhaps helps to shed light on the history of live performance on the internet.
Cyberformance is the term I coined in 2000 to describe my experiments in live performance with remote performers coming together in real time via free internet chat applications. It came out of the need to find a word that avoided the polarisation of virtual and real, and the need for a new term (rather than "online performance" or "virtual theatre") for a new genre. My Masters thesis, Adventures in Cyberformance: experiments at the interface of theatre and the internet, outlines what cyberformance is and could be.
Much has changed since 2000; there are now many different artists experimenting in all kinds of forms of cyberformance and networked performance, and using the internet as a medium for live performances. And my own work continues to evolve. This site, infrequently updated, is an attempt to make more accessible the variety of work that could come under the cyberformance umbrella. It's very incomplete; please if something is missing.
Here's my (again, incomplete)networked/distributed/telematic cyberformance timeline. Feel free to if you know of something i've left out.
Francesco Buonaiuto's Performance online timeline.
Aether9's timeline of Communication Art.
The Walker Art Centre Telematics Timeline (has more spam entries than genuine entries)
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