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Artists from New Zealand, the UK, USA and Europe are involved in the ABC Experiment; some are lurkers on the email list, some are vocal and others are active cyberformers. The project is based in Wellington, New Zealand, and bios of some of the local team are below.


Above: Angela Main, Karla Ptacek, Helen Varley Jamieson, Leena Saarinen,
Vicki Smith and Paolo Grippa line up for a photo opportunity.

 

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Helen Varley Jamieson - www.creative-catalyst.com

Helen has earned a living from the internet for years, and learned a loving for the theatre as a child. Cyberformance brings these two aspects of her life together. Cyberformance has turned on the performer in her fingers, shown her a new way to improvise with words and introduced her to collaborators around the world, like the fabulous Desktop Theater crew and the wonderful family that is the Magdalena Project.

She is a playwright, freelance writer, traveller, researcher, frock collector and many other things in her spare time.

 

Paolo Grippa

Paolo is a professional performer who has worked extensively in Europe and the United States. His training and experience draw on Oriental and Western theatrical traditions. He has worked and performed at the Opera House, National Theatre and the Circus Colombaioni in Rome, as well as the Actors Studio in New York. In 1979 he founded the Abraxa Theatre Company, based in Rome, and since 1992 he has been directing the Scio' Scio' Theatre Company. He moved to Wellington New Zealand in October 2000 to develop his research work.

 

Karla Ptacek - Artificial Stage

Karla's early career spans two decades as performer and playwright in New York City, predominantly as a member of the collaborative multimedia performance group, Creation Production Company, resident at La Mama ETC. Since October 2000, she has been pursuing practice-based doctoral research into digital performance, supported by an award from the Arts & Humanities Research Board, in London, UK.

Her experiments with cyberformance have spawned Tito Alberto, the great cyber director.

 

Angela Main

With a background in theatre, Angela has over 18 years experience as a project and events manager in the arts and cultural sphere. She has developed her work to include multimedia, lighting and set design, writing and directing, production management and technical direction. She has worked with Micheal Parmenter, Mike Hodgson, Brian Carbee, Morag Magnolia Brownlie and Gareth Farr among others. Recently she received a Creative NZ Grant to develop a concept for an interactive project linking both web and event mediums.

 

Vicki Smith

Vicki is a visual artist who has been producing commissioned work and exhibitions for over a decade, works in a design capacity in both print and web, and has taught in second chance education in IT and the web. She has worked collaboratively on mural projects and in the Digital Story Telling medium both as participant and facilitator.

Joining the[abc]troupe has been an exciting opportunity to explore the dramamtic process and further her interests in theatre, film and stage design. As well as producing graphics and some of the avatars for the[abc]experiment, Vicki has enjoyed developing characters and devising story. She has also assisted in starting others off in the cyberforming role through the 2 hands-on sessions held in conjunction with the[acb]experiment.

 


Leena Saarinen

Leena builds chatterbots and does research on computer mediated communication. Her background in information technology and new media arts brings about poetic cybertexts and other interactive narratives that she developes at night.

 

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