SPIDERWEBSHOW PERFORMANCE proudly presents the 7th annual Festival of Live Digital Art (FOLDA), the only festival of its kind in Canada exploring and presenting live performances integrated with digital technologies. FOLDA 2024 will be presented both in-person and online, June 13 to 15, 2024, at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts and Ingenuity Labs, Queen’s University (390 King St. W), and at The Broom Factory (305 Rideau St.) in Kingston, ON, and is produced by SpiderWebShow Performance.

FOLDA offers an eclectic and interdisciplinary mix of interactive theatre, music, aerial arts, storytelling, crafts, film, and more. The festival’s focus on accessibility cleverly complements its in-depth exploration of digital tools, including AI and VR. As always, programming for FOLDA shows how everyday digital technologies create opportunities for artists and audiences with disabilities to access the arts.

“The shows presented at FOLDA 7 illuminate an understanding that 2D livestreaming is a small, but still important, component of what ‘digital performance’ can be. Audiences and artists have so many new ways to create and engage now, it is creating new formations and ideas all the time.” - Adrienne Wong, Michael Wheeler, and Marcel Stewart, Co-Curators.

This year’s Presentation Series launches with a performance by psychedelic multi-instrumentalist KaKaow at The Broom Factory on June 13, 2024. Over the next two days of the Festival, Adrienne Wong performs SmartSmart. This storytelling performance relies on the participation of audience members who are encouraged to leave their phones on. Toronto-based interdisciplinary performance collective bluemouth inc. and Montreal artificial intelligence company ReImagine AI collaborate to present LUCY AI, a touching interactive installation exploring the future of memory and the border between life and death and created by Lucy Simic, Stephen O’Connell, and iconic musician David Usher. Mash Up, a Disability-led collaboration explores creative accessibility in aerial arts and music with digital technologies and in-person tools. SESQUI will present their 20-minute marquee hemispherical film HORIZON. And in Immersive Wilderness, National Theatre School’s Indigenous Artist-in-Residence, Barry Bilinsky, in partnership with Montreal animation studio EDFilms, will offer a behind the scenes of a new VR performance by EDFilm’s latest technology “Puppet Tools,” which allows artists working in VR to manipulate 3D models in real-time.

FOLDA 2024 PRESENTATION SERIES:

SMARTSMART

Directed and performed by Adrienne Wong

Digital Designer: Andie Lloyd

Developer: Nicole Goertzen

Set Design: Barbara Clayden

Take your phone to the theatre! Join Adrienne Wong for crafts, storytelling, and surprises. Leave your phone on. SmartSmart combines audience participation and a modular script where the storytelling is predetermined, but the order is improvised based on you, the audience. The experience is a meditation on mediation.

Venue: Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts (390 King St. W.)

IN-PERSON:

Friday, June 14th at 7:00 pm ET and Saturday, June 15th at 3:00 pm ET

Saturday’s performance of SmartSmart is a family-friendly relaxed performance. Audiences of all ages are welcome.

LIVESTREAM:

Friday, June 14th, at 7:30 p.m. ET. Purchase tickets to receive information about accessing the livestream.

Watch/Listen Party for Blind/Low Vision hosted online - Friday, June 14 from 6:45 pm ET

ASL Interpretation - Saturday, June 15 at 3:00 pm ET

Captions - Livestream - Friday, June 14 at 7:30 pm ET online

Relaxed Environment - Noises, movement, devices, and snacks are permitted, and a private space to relax in if you need it.

Service animals are always welcome - Visual Guides available in person.

LUCY AI

bluemouth inc. and ReImagine AI

Created by Lucy Simic, Stephen O’Connell, and David Usher

In 2018, at the age of 29, Lucy Simic, one of the founders of bluemouth inc., was diagnosed with terminal stage four lung cancer. Using AI technologies, ReImagine AI has created a second soul for Lucy in a poetic visual archive that reflects her life as an artist. This interactive installation invites audience members to talk with LUCY AI, joining her in intimate memories and career milestones. LUCY AI is an installation about the future of memory and how emerging technologies are reshaping our conceptions of the border between life and death.

LUCY AI is a collaboration between Lucy Simic, Stephen O’Connell and their NYC/Toronto-based interdisciplinary performance collective bluemouth inc., and Montreal artificial intelligence company ReImagine AI. Lucy and David Usher, the founder of ReImagine AI, have been close friends for 3 decades since they first met as students while studying modern dance at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC.

Venue: Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts (390 King St. W.)

LUCY AI is an interactive installation. Tickets are booked in 30-minute blocks.

Individual or Joint tickets with SmartSmart, MashUp, or HORIZON 360º areavailable at folda.ca.

IN-PERSON:

Friday, June 14th from 5:00pm-9:00pm ET and Saturday, June 15th from 1:00pm-9:00pm ET

ASL Interpretation is available Saturday, June 15, from 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm ET

Relaxed Environment—Noises, movement, and devices are permitted, and there is a private space to relax in if you need it.

Service animals are always welcome - Visual Guides available in person.

LUCY AI is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.

MASH UP - EXPLORATIONS OF CREATIVE ACCESS IN PERFORMANCE ART

By Erin Ball, Maxime Beauregard, Andrew Heule, Gaitrie Persaud-Killings, Jaideep Goray

This Disability-led collaboration explores creative accessibility in aerial arts and music by combining digital technologies with in-person tools.

How can we create more welcoming environments for Disabled, Deaf, and hard-of-hearing artists and audiences? How can digital offerings be more engaging and support folks who can’t participate in person? These are just a few of Mash Up's inquiries. Audiences are encouraged to join the dialogue at the end of the presentation.

Venue: Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts (390 King St. W.)

IN-PERSON:

Saturday, June 15th at 7 pm ET

All in-person tickets for Mash Up are Joint Tickets that include entry into Lucy AI.

LIVESTREAM:

Saturday, June 15th at 7 pm ET. Purchase tickets to receive information about how to access the livestream.

Watch/Listen Party for Blind and Low Vision hosted online on June 15 from 6:15 pm ET.

ASL Interpretation online and in person

Captions are available on Livestream, online

Relaxed Environment—Noise, movement, devices, and snacks are permitted, and there is a private space to relax in if you need it.

Service animals always welcome - Visual Guides available in person.

HORIZON 360º

SESQUI

HORIZON is SESQUI’s marquee hemispherical film. The 20-minute film is a soaring visual symphony that places viewers in the center of the action during an inspiring showcase of Canadian creative expression that unfolds from coast to coast to coast. HORIZON takes its audience on a revealing expedition from the highest peaks to the deepest seas and through all ten provinces and three territories. Drawing upon artistic inspiration from our country’s rich cultural mosaic, the film features traditional and contemporary creative works set in our diverse nation's unforgettable urban and natural landscapes.

Venue: Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts (390 King St. W.)

IN-PERSON:

Friday, June 14th at 6 pm ET and 6:30 pm ET

Saturday, June 15th at 2 pm ET, 2:30 pm ET, 6 pm ET, and 6:30 pm ET

Free event - registration is required. HORIZON audiences are welcome to select a Joint Ticket when reserving tickets for additional entry into the installation of Lucy AI on the day of their performance.

KAKAOW

Presented in partnership with the Kingston Canadian Film Festival

Kick off the seventh Festival of Live Digital Art with musical guest KaKaow. KaKaow (aka Ricky Brant) is a psychedelic and funk-infused multi-instrumentalist who creates what he calls an Electro Psychedelifunk experience to bend the mind and perception of what sound can be while playing synthesizers and guitar—not to mention making your booty move!

Venue: The Broom Factory (305 Rideau St.)

IN-PERSON:

Thursday, June 13th at 8:00 pm ET

IMMERSIVE WILDERNESS

By Barry Bilinsky

Presented with support from the National Theatre School

Get a look behind the scenes of a new VR performance by Barry Bilinsky, the National Theatre School’s Indigenous Artist-in-Residence, in partnership with Montreal animation studio EDFilms.

EDFilm’s new technology “Puppet Tools” allows artists working in VR to manipulate 3D models in real-time, like puppeteers in performance. Using this tool, Barry investigates how our bodies respond under various perspectives like the male gaze, the colonial gaze, hunger, thirst, race, and gender to experiment with the tool's and program's devised applications.

Venue: Ingenuity Labs - Queen’s University

IN-PERSON:

Thursday, June 13th at 2 pm ET

THE START UP 2024

Thursday, June 13th-Saturday, June 15th

Presented in Partnership with Ingenuity Labs at Queen’s University

The StartUp is a three-day intensive of hands-on workshops that runs June 13-15, 2024 in Kingston, presented in partnership with Ingenuity Labs at Queen’s University. This intensive is geared towards artists, science and technology workers looking for new avenues of exploration, and arts and culture workers exploring a continued commitment to digital exploration and/or accessibility and inclusion.

Thursday, June 13th. Innovations in VR and Performance

Can virtual reality environments be applied to real-world spaces? Spend the morning in a hands-on collaborative experiment inside SESQUI’s 360-degree dome.

A behind the scenes look at a new VR performance by National Theatre School’s Indigenous Artist-in-Residence Barry Bilinsky, in partnership with Montreal animation studio, EDFilms. EDFilm’s new technology “Puppet Tools” allows artists working in VR to manipulate 3D models in real-time, like puppeteers in performance. Barry is experimenting with applying “Puppet Tools” in a live performance context, influenced by his thinking about the male gaze, the colonial gaze, hunger, thirst, race, and gender.

Friday, June 14th. AI in Practice

Start Up delegates will begin the day in the Anti-Racist AI Hack Lab, where generative AI will be used to create a compelling devised performance. This workshop focuses on overcoming the racial and colonial biases that are often built into large language models.

In the afternoon, delegates will meet with artists from bluemouth inc and David Rokeby, the Director of The BMO Lab for Creative Research in the Arts, Performance, Emerging Technologies and AI to talk about real examples of artificial intelligence in creative performance practice. Through real-life case studies, they’ll uncover how this technology is applied to create engaging performances.

Saturday, June 15th. Community Connections

The StartUp cohort members share their current projects and preoccupations in 15 minutes Laser Talks, followed by emergent dialogue in an informal setting.

Marcel Stewart, FOLDA’s Director of Artistic Outreach and artist Oonya Kempadoo, will lead an investigative workshop around his latest work, Windrush. Patrons will experience a live reading, explore his creative journey, and engage in meaningful dialogue about identity, migration, and belonging.

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DETAILS:

WHEN: June 13-15, 2024

WHERE: Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts and Ingenuity Labs, Queen’s University, and The Broom Factory in Kingston, ON

TICKETS: Tickets: starting from $15.00, including fees - Start Up Pass: $140 including fees - For more details on tickets and FOLDA 2024: www.folda.ca.