Opera Toolkit Improvisation Workshop

This workshop, led by Lisa Kori Chung, Gene Kogan and Sarah McSherry, is aimed at performers, singers, dancers, poets, technophiles, technophobes, and the simply curious.

Opera Toolkit is a collection of open source audiovisual software for performing artists and an approach to developing new forms of collaborative multimedia performance, initiated by Colin Self, Lisa Kori Chung, and Gene Kogan, and is currently in development at Eyebeam. The goal is to build a common vocabulary among technologically-based artists and those who work in other media, enabling writers, musicians, choreographers, and others to incorporate multimedia into their creative process.

In this workshop, we will create various audiovisual scenarios that include techniques such as projection mapping and live vocal effects. With each of these scenes, we will be experimenting with performance prompts that attempt to mediate on-the-spot group audiovisual improvisation. Participants will be invited to try out the scene, improvise and come up with prompts of their own.

Originally from Hawaii and based in NYC, Lisa Kori Chung is an artist, creative producer and researcher. As a 2010-2011 Watson Fellow, she documented various communities that formed around technologically-based art practices. This interest in collaboration and community building, as well as bridging different forms of knowledge, has continued throughout her projects. These include Open Fit (with Kyle McDonald), an open source clothing workflow that brings pattern making knowledge into the Processing environment, Sway (with Caitlin Morris), an immersive sound installation that aims to connect physical and sonic textures, and Opera Toolkit (with Gene Kogan and Colin Self), open source audiovisual software and performance prompts for new forms of musical narrative performance.

Gene Kogan is an artist and programmer who is interested in generative systems and the application of emerging technology into artistic and expressive contexts. He writes code for live music, performance, and visual art. He contributes to open-source software projects and gives workshops and demonstrations on topics related to code and art. He is a contributor to openFrameworks, Processing, and p5.js, an adjunct professor at Bennington College, and a former resident at Eyebeam.