Ioanna Zouli: Can you hear them clapping?

This small-scale research project explores the opportunities and challenges of live-networked performance productions as these emerged during the pandemic of Covid-19 in the Greek context. It derives from the study of the online practices that cultural organizations and cultural practitioners around the world engaged with during the pandemic: from podcasts, live broadcasts and online screenings, to access to online collections and archives as well as virtual tours. In Greece a few organizations as well as some independent artists and art collectives responded to the atypical moment of “online-or-nothing” by staging live performances online.

The research focuses mainly on the stagings that took place directly on online platforms (such as Zoom performances), on desktops (desktop performances) or were streamed via social media (such as Facebook Live) from a homemade setting.

The project aims to map how online performances happened, who was involved and what is the aftermath of these live experiences. The methodology involves locating a few key case studies and interviewing the creators / directors and possibly some of the participating actors and/or audience.

These conversations will allow for an extended understanding of the practices, tools and processes through which the live networked performances were made possible. The reflections from the field will help form an archive of practices that were tested during the telematic conditions that the pandemic forced. At a further stage the purpose is to create a toolkit with a set of instructions and methods that can be useful beyond the health emergency of 2020-2021; as distinct cultural practices of today and the future.