The Festival of Live Digital Art (FOLDA) is produced by Spiderwebshow Performance, co-founded by DAN School Assistant Professor Michael Wheeler, who serves as the organization’s Director of Artistic Research. Occurring annually in June at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing arts, FOLDA aims to increase the rigour of live digital performance as it becomes more pervasive by showing what is possible, provoking critical analysis, and sharing approaches that encourage experimentation.
FOLDA aims to be an incubator for an emerging art form where audience feedback plays a key role throughout the creative process. The festival incorporates a three-stage iterative development model borrowed from software design to present and engage with these works:
|
ALPHA
|
Performances in their earliest stages, ready for internal testing, but require audience feedback to spark the next stage of development. |
|---|---|
|
BETA
|
Performances ready for public testing to refine the audience experience. |
|
GO
|
Performances ready for production release. Audience input contributes to improvements and bug fixes just like your favourite app. |
Works in ALPHA one year, can return to FOLDA as a GO the following year. Works in BETA can be picked up by other presenters to be GO at other festivals. This approach provides artists with creative opportunities that support works that require iteration based on feedback loops created by audience interactivity, matching the demands of how digitally-engaged performance is created. This approach also allows presenters the opportunity to engage with and track work throughout their development process, offering more organic and informed partnerships to develop works beyond the festival.
The Incubator page features some of the artists and work developed at FOLDA.