'Shadow and Substance: returning to the ideas of cinematic pioneers in the creation of new digital interfaces'

After spending two decades making performances that played with the intersection of the on-stage with the onscreen performer Mary Oliver is applying her performance methodology to the creation of new kinds of sensor driven embodied interfaces. In this lecture she will address how this 21st Century embodied cinematic practice has its roots in the ambitions of the very first film/theatre impresarios who were a combination of storyteller, engineer and magician.

Mary Oliver is Professor of New Media Performance and Head of Media at Manchester School of Art. She has been devising performance work for over 30 years, for the last two decades she has interrogated the meaning of liveness in a digital age. Much of the focus of this work has been on the use of digital technology in bringing impossible performers to the stage. She is currently using her experience of digital storytelling to develop affective embodied learning interfaces.