Hal Eagar

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Biography

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.

In 2003, he created the Digital Performance Institute’s (DPI) equipment loan & artist residency programs, which were in response to his 9 years of computer & media consulting for GSRT & other artists & NY nonprofits. After directing the DPI programs for 3 years -- providing free equipment to 80 productions & residencies to 9 media artists -- he was promoted to Associate Artistic Director in order to focus on the expansion & growth of DPI. Through his consulting, he aims to share his knowledge with the greater arts community http://digitalperformance.org

Hal also led the innovative production of Mr. Z: I was a Teenage Cryptologist, performed at GSRT & the List Gallery, M.I.T. He co-created two interactive Web artworks & gallery installations with visual artist Margot Lovejoy Confess & TURNS—which has toured internationally, Whitney Biennial 2002, ZKM (Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie), the Queens Museum, Media Lab Madrid & several other museums. He works with digital artist Marek Walczak on projects such as Adrift, last shown at the New Museum NY, & TimeMaker, a commission by the Nabi Art Center Korea. In 2004, Eagar co-created an installation & performance series with puppeteer & visual artist Kate Brehm, OnRed, the installation extended through the entire One Arm Red theatrical space & onto the Internet. These six projects are a mix of computer, network, installation & theatrical techniques.

Eagar has also designed digital projections for GSRT (Ubu Roi, Making of Americans & The Sandman), Dreamweaver Productions (Continuum), & Mabou Mines (An Epidog), as well as video projection & special effects for puppet works with puppet artist & director Erin Orr. He Has worked with Directory Kristen Marting & Video Artist James Scruggs implementing environmental projections systems on (Orpheus, Disposable Men, Lush Valley, & RUSH.) He also co-created the Video/Puppet piece "Do You Copy" with Kate Brehm, which premiered at the Bangkok International Fringe Festival in 2005, and toured as Video Associate with The Builders Association's production of Super Vision, and worked as a Resident artist at HERE Arts Center.

Hal is still working toward developing a Robot Theatre meshing puppetry, digital media, and playful magic.

Find out more about him & his projects at http://haleagar.com.