Beyond Reality

Panelists: Ian Garrett, Beth Kates, Sadah Espii Proctor, Paul Cegys

Host and Moderator: T. Erin Gruber and Ian Garrett

About the Presenters:

Ian (he/him) is a designer, producer, educator, and researcher in the field of sustainability in arts and culture. He is the director of the Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts; Associate Professor of Ecological Design for Performance at York University; and Producer for Toasterlab, a Mixed Reality Performance Production Company. He maintains a design practice focused on ecology, technology and scenography. He serves on the Board of Directors for Associated Designers of Canada IATSE ADC 659.

Beth (she/her) is an award-winning lighting, set, video/mixed reality designer, whose work has moved across disciplines over the last 30 years. She is the creative director of both Playground Studios, Digital Alchemy Creation Lab, and has collaborated on hundreds of shows and installations. She is leaders in the emerging art form of VR Theatre, and her work explores the intersections of Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence and live performance—investigating the possibilities of design, performance, creation and audience experience in this new territory.

Espii is a VR director and sound/media designer for theatre and immersive experiences. Named by American Theatre Magazine as one of “6 Theatre Artists to Know” for multimedia storytelling, her work encompasses global stories of women, social issues, and the African Diaspora, often with an Afrofuturist/Cyberpunk lens. Her original work is also influenced by gothic horror, anime, and visual kei. She received her M.F.A. in Performance and Interactive Arts from Brooklyn College and is a proud alumna of Virginia Tech.

Paul’s work merges multiple practices of performance creation and design, from theatre and opera to site-specific installation and intermedial mixed-reality scenographies. Upholding his commitment to ecological imperatives he merges his artistic work with his sustainability practice (MSc. in Sustainability Science and Environmental Studies, Lunds University, Sweden). He is the Co-Creator of Individuality and Interconnection, a 360o video project that maps the creative spaces of Canadian performance designers and he is the Digital Scenographer for The Home, a VR experience designed for the Digital Oral Histories for Reconciliation project funded by the SSHRC and in partnership with Oculus VR. He is a Lecturer in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo, and serves on the advisory board of the Toasterlab Mixed Reality Performance Atelier. He is currently a PhD. Candidate at the School of Arts, Design and Architecture at Aalto University in Finland.