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.
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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.
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