Folda - Festival of Live Digital Art
See shows.
Talk about shows.
Work with creators on their shows.
Digital is here. FOLDA celebrates it.
CALL FOR PAPERS
The StartUp is seeking proposals for papers and case studies to be presented at the 2025 edition of The StartUp. This industry series runs parallel to FOLDA (Festival of Live Digital Art) in Kingston, ON June 4-7, 2025.
The StartUp offers artists, students, and technologists hands-on experience with intelligent technologies for live performance. We provide a state of the art setting and future-facing curriculum to learn creative approaches to a shifting set of tools and ways of working in the live arts.
Emerging participatory digital technologies, including AI, AR, and VR, have created striking new forms of art and working together, changing how we work together, engage in creativity, and build shared experiences. This has in turn changed how many people make and experience live performance.
The need to study technology’s impact on artistic creation is especially urgent after the COVID-19 pandemic as the rapid move to gather in virtual spaces catalyzed new and unexpected forms of sociality, while fraying established modes of connection. Considering this impact is increasingly crucial to grapple with as algorithms reinforce existing beliefs, building echo chambers that reinforce rigid group identity, and limit exposure to diverse viewpoints.
It’s not just our ways of creating art that are shifting, our audiences are changing how and from whom they encounter live performance.
Possible topics for papers include:
- Case studies of performances that integrate or are influenced by intelligent technologies
- Early-stage proposals and prototypes concepts or potential projects at the intersection of live performance and tech
- Poetic and creative applications of tech
- Creative access
- Disability-led tech innovation
- Investigations into multiverses and pluriverses
- Interrogating bias and prejudice in tech tools and platforms
- Worldbuilding
The StartUp exists in part to grapple with and interrogate the outcomes of greater technological enmeshment. We are a long way from Google having ‘Do No Evil’ as part of their core values (they removed it, you can Google it!). But we’re also at a stage where we understand ‘To Google’ as a verb, the same as ‘To Walk’ or ‘To Eat’. We cannot escape the pervasive nature of these technologies in our lives, even when they deliver suboptimal results.
By taking a perspective that is realistic about benefits, and future-facing in what is being explored, The StartUp offers a way forward that puts the arts and artistic practice at a center of the conversation. The conversations are not about whether a technological application can be scaled and sold, but about imagination, fun, and the central role for humanity in this ongoing movement.
We welcome proposals from students, scholars, practitioners, artists, technologies, and industry professionals in the disciplines of theatre, live performance, media arts, gaming, engineering, and computer science.
Presentations will be 10-15 minutes long. Please prepare a proposal (max 300 words) and biography (max 150 words per participant) to be submitted via our online application form.
Co-curators Marcel Stewart, Michael Wheeler, and Adrienne Wong will start reviewing proposals November 29, 2024 and make all selections by December 15, 2025.
If you have any questions, please email producer@spiderwebshow.ca.
CURRENT PROJECTS
SmartSmart
Adrienne Wong
Take your phone to the theatre! Join Adrienne for crafts, storytelling, and surprises. Leave your phone on.
Windrush
Marcel Stewart
We journey through the intertwined lives of three generations, navigating the complexities of identity, belonging, and legacy.
You Should Have Stayed Home
Tommy Taylor & Michael Wheeler
We join Tommy Taylor as he recounts his journey attending his first ever protest in the “Free Speech Zone” at Queen’s Park before being swept up in a mass arrest and detained at the Eastern Avenue Detention Centre.
The Thought Residencies
Marcel Stewart
The short grapplings from Canadian theatre folks sharing their thoughts, ideas, and feelings about art, performance or whatever is on their mind.
FOLDA’s programming is structured to support artists creating theatre in a digital age
Alpha
Performances in their earliest stages, ready for internal testing, but require audience feedback to spark the next stage of development.
Beta
Performances ready for public testing to refine the audience experience.
Go
Performances ready for production release. Audience input contributes to improvements and bug fixes just like your favourite ap.
Last Year’s Edition Highlights
FOLDA is supported by
