For the last 12 years, media effects artist & computer programmer Hal Eagar facilitated innovation in live performance technology by putting new media on stage & exploring the boundaries between the freedom of the digital media & the impact of physical presence. His interest in integrating digital media & live performance began at Purchase College, where his thesis project Cyberspeare—Web site & multimedia theatrical event—was staged in 1995.

He joined The Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre (GSRT) in 1996 as Technology Director. In this capacity, he creates content & custom software for projects involving streaming media, 2D & 3D animations, interactive environments, & projection effects.

Eagar has created affordable tools & solutions, for multi-screen synchronization, live puppetry animation, live control of 3D animations, networked video & animation control including the MediaBeam, a movable projection system with anti-distortion software that allows the artist to reshape video images. All these tools are focused on solving problems in an affordable way, making them effective & available to artist. The MediaBeam has allowed nonprofits access to effects that would otherwise be too costly in productions like Cynthia Hopkins’s Accidental Nostalgia (St. Ann’s Warehouse, Walker Arts Center) , director Kristin Marting’s alt musical Orpheus (HERE) & James Scruggs's solo performance piece, Disposable Men (HERE), & is also in use in the lobby installation at Dodgers Stages.
 read full post »