Across Cyberspace and Time Zones: How Ways of Being Explores Performances of Self in Material and Digital Spaces

Abstract:After watching the same show over the course of three separate performances, Stephanie Fung and Jeff McGilton come to their own conclusions about Ways of Being, the final instalment in the Kingston-based Kick and Push Festival 2021. Presented live by Toronto-based Clayton Lee and Kraków-based Michael Rubenfeld, the performance was an investigation of connectivity across geographical space and time zones, using a participatory structure to subtly investigate our ways of being. The participatory nature of the piece informed its undeniable feeling of liveness, changing and developing with whoever was in attendance. Fung and McGilton consider how this work-in-progress invokes an understanding of presence, performances of self, and (re)connection through creative implementations of emerging technologies.