Access All (2002)

Access All was performance produced following a three-month mentorship in web-based performance that I was commissioned to conduct for the performance company Igneous. This live, triple-site performance event for three performers in three remote venues was specifically designed for presentation at Access Grid Nodes - conference rooms located around the globe equipped with a high end, open source computer teleconferencing technology that allowed multiple nodes to cross-connect with each other. Whilst each room was setup somewhat differently they all deployed the same basic infrastructre of multiple projectors, cameras, and sound as well as a reconfigurable floorspace. At that time these relatively formal setups imposed a clear series of limitations in terms of software capabilities and basic infrastructure and so there was much interest in understanding how far its capabilities might be pushed.

SHOWING HISTORY:
1: Access Grid Performance Festival, 18–22 December, 2002, various times, simultaneously at Manchester Supercomputing Centre, UK, QUT Gardens Point, Brisbane & VISLAB, Redfern, Sydney, Australia. 
2: Workshops with Mike Stubbs, March 2003, various times, Brisbane Powerhouse, Brisbane. Australia.

TEAM: Keith Armstrong (Artistic director) with Igneous (Suzon Fuks & James Cunningham) & assisted by Bonemap (Russell Milledge and Rebecca Youdell), Kelli Dipple (TATE Modern, UK) & Mike Stubbs (FACT, UK)

MORE: Numerous performance experiments were undertaken between three Access Grid nodes in QUT Brisbane, VISLAB Sydney and Manchester Supercomputing Centre, England, culminating in the public performance staged simultaneously between the sites with local audiences at each venue and others online. Access All was devised in collaboration with interdisciplinary performance company Bonemap, Kelli Dipple (Interarts curator, Tate Modern London) and Mike Stubbs British curator and Director of FACT (Liverpool).

This period of research and development was instigated and shaped by a public lecture I had earlier delivered in Sydney for the ‘Global Access Grid Network, Super Computing Global Conference’ entitled  'Performance Practice across Electronic Networks'. The findings of this work went on to inform numerous future networked and performative works produced from 2002 onwards.