DPI:

There are a lot of titles for using media on stage, and a lot of titles for those who design or produce it.

What terms do you use/like/hate?

Hal Eagar:

I really like the European term 'Beamer' instead of 'Projector', it sounds better, and is more evocative and descriptive to me of the way a 'projector' is used.

"New Media on Stage" is one term I tried to use, but it does not really seem to strike a chord with anyone, and it's a little long an awkward to slip into conversation.

I also struggle for a good term for Live / Real-time / dynamic. Because all those words have to many other meanings. And what is real and now vs. canned / recorded or planed is a spectrum not a dividing line. For instance the actors are 'really' live, but what they say, and even where they go on stage is all pre planed.

So what is more live about a 'live' camera feed then a movie clip? Or VR 3D vs. animations as QuickTime files vs. DVD's. But there is a difference, and I am always struggling to get to the more 'live' send of the spectrum.

But the term is a problem. The media is not living in traditional terms. Though to get it to live in artistic terms is the objective. And TV news has totally eroded the meaning of live anyway; they do all these 'live' feeds where nothing is happening live. And the whole thing is pre scripted.

In general we have a cultural and linguistic problem with what is real. The definition of Virtual is really "Actual" but we use it to mean simulated. The definition of Literally is also "Actually" but we have started to use it to mean it's opposite "Figuratively", which is wrong but possibly a reasonable use since literary usage is often fabricated. But really my point is that it's not only our words for what is real that is getting confused, our whole concept of what is real and live VS caned and fake is in flux. Are the MP3 files on my I-Pod in any way "Real", and at what point does talking on my Cell phone constitute "Live" communication.

In the end it's really this change that makes putting video on stage viable and interesting. And of course it becomes part of the ongoing confusion itself.

Anyway I have problems with all the terms from "digital" to "interactive" to "video" itself. I mean "Video Design" is clearly not what I do, that's what Cinematographers and Editors do, they are "Designing Video", but those two titles along with "Animator" are all better and more clear than "Video Designer". I mean "video" it's not video, TV and DVD's are video. Nam June Paik was a "Video Designer" he was doing things with what video really is, but "Video Artist" still describes that better. "Projectionist" might work but it's already used for a fairly wrote technical job, and besides the "projectors" are no more the point to me than the TV's and LCD screens, it's nothing without the media, if it's blank. But on the other hand, if it's on your TV or computer it's not the same thing as what I'm trying to do on stage; and again Cinema is something else again in a theater but not on stage.

I do kind of like the tem "dynamic media", and "media", and "mediated" and "remediated".

And even "mediality". I even call myself a "Media Effects Artist". Media, which I like. Artist, which is hard to pin down but describes how one creatively interacts with and makes the media. And Effects, which is maybe a little too vague, but gets away from "video" and points back to theatrical Stage Effects, and cinematic Visual Effects, which is more where I would look for inspiration myself.