INDIANAPOLIS—Join the IUPUI Donald Tavel Arts Technology Research Center on the web for Earth Day Art Model Telematic Festival, presenting an exciting online electronically-based music and arts with conversations, spanning 24 hours on April 22, International Earth Day. The festival will feature performances from Australia, China, Brazil, and Germany, to name a few.
Earth Day Art Model is a telematic festival, meaning that musicians and artists bring the internet to the live stage, connecting multiple performers across the globe. Festival Director Scott Deal, Professor in the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology at IUPUI, is a specialist in telematic art, and uses this medium to engage environmental concepts. In 2011, Deal and composer Matthew Burtner won the coveted Internet2 IDEA Award for their co-creation of Auksalaq, an eco-acoustic telematic opera hailed as “an important realization of meaningful opera for today’s world”.
Keeping the plans for the festival going in the wake of COVID-19 has been challenging. “It has been quite a ride since February” says Deal. We had a nice combination of media and public performances lined up, joining stages from all over the world. Then the pandemic hit, and gradually global collaborators, beginning with an ensemble in Beijing, China, were forced to cancel as their countries enacted social distancing”. Yet rather than halt the festival altogether, the team worked at developing alternatives, and now the festival will proceed online as scheduled.
As a result of the pandemic, the festival established a new segment, “Music in Place”. This will entail live performances over the internet using the simple format of presenting from one’s shelter in place over Zoom videoconferencing software. As witnessed almost daily in social media, this style of delivery is a true reflection of what musicians and others are currently harnessing in order to express themselves.
Earth Day Art Model is produced by the Donald Tavel Arts Technology Research Center, School of Engineering and Technology, IUPUI.
For more information and free streaming links to the festival, visit earthdayartmodel.org
For more information contact: info@earthdayartmodel.org or call 317-278-4136.