Los Angeles | 2023 | UCLA

Super Stage

Art and performance are essential human rights that now thrive in a variety of settings, from streets and cultural festivals to virtual platforms, reshaping the traditional boundaries between artists and audiences. The future of performance embraces new physical and digital spaces, using everything from overlooked highway intersections to virtual environments, making art more accessible and interactive in everyday life.

In different settings, the future of performance is reimagined in diverse ways. In one scenario, the stage becomes a broadcasting laboratory that draws from the tradition of laboratory theaters and communal rituals. In another, it’s a production studio where the audience surrounds the stage from all sides, blurring the lines between onstage and offstage, onsite and online. Elsewhere, the stage transforms into an interactive playground, merging reality with virtual dreams, or even a distributed “space” existing only in the cloud, where artificial intelligence takes over as the storyteller. The possibilities extend to stages that animate indoor and outdoor spaces without a traditional theatrical setup, and even stages that exist solely in the mind. This new era of performance thrives in the space between human action and the digital metaverse, with artists embracing agile, low-cost, and multi-sited modes of performance that transcend conventional boundaries.

Art and performance are not luxuries; they are fundamental human rights. From stand-up comedy at the Laugh Factory to viral TikTok videos, art has long relied on the support of wealth and patronage, but today, it exists everywhere—from streets and sidewalks to cultural festivals, workplaces, and virtual platforms like Zoom. These performances take on a multitude of forms, each shaped by its specific site, context, and genre.

The pandemic has shown that art cannot survive on streaming alone; it requires new physical architectures, infrastructures, and more flexible organizational structures. The historic boundary between artists and audiences has become a permeable membrane, with audiences actively participating in the storytelling and creating multiple possible endings. In this future, even overlooked spaces like the unused land around highway intersections can become stages. These stages utilize existing infrastructure for accessibility and stability, with screens reflecting performances to the surrounding public. These screens could be fabric on a space frame, high-tech displays, or projections visible from cars, boats, or bikes, making performance an omnipresent and accessible experience.