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futureStage is a global research project dedicated to investigating current challenges and future prospects for the development of opera houses, theatres, and performing arts centers. It is a brainchild of metaLAB at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. In October 2021, the project released their manifesto which offers a vision of performance as a human right.
futureStage is an international research collective mapping opportunities for performance spaces in a hyperconnected world.
Let me quote from the metaLAB website since there you can find the best and most concise information as to what the collective is and what it aims to achieve:
Like all platforms for experimentation, metaLAB is less a destination than a perpetual work in progress.
Rooted in the arts and humanities, straddling scholarly, critical, and creative practice, it is a community of scholars, designers, artists, makers, technologists, curators, and educators dedicated to modeling new forms of cultural communication, creative and critical practice, and knowledge production.
metaLAB is an idea foundry in the sense that it is committed to ideation, debate, speculation, and theorization across the disciplinary grid.
metaLAB is a knowledge design lab inasmuch as it consists of a portfolio of projects that translate ideas into practical expressions, from experimental books and pamphlets to museum installations to software platforms and data visualizations to participatory events.
metaLAB is a production studio because it is committed to bringing together the mind and the hand, thinking and making.
It tests out hypotheses and ideas by developing and delivering a wide array of outputs including database documentaries, software platforms, artworks, exhibitions, studio courses and workshops, data visualizations, and curatorial projects.
As an institutional unit within the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, metaLAB is actively involved in the Center’s research efforts in such domains as artificial intelligence, social justice, internet governance, cybersecurity, and the law.
metaLAB is physically located on the 4th floor of 42 Kirkland Street, within Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.
Because design practice is fundamental to its ethos, metaLAB maintains close ties to GSD faculty, students, and academic programs, as well as to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Possibly the most important part of the futureStage manifesto, released by metaLAB on October 21st last year, is the first page of it, outlining that “Performance is a Human Right.”
You can find the full manifesto here.
The idea for this manifesto is not for it to be a one-time publication. Rather it is supposed to become an annual guide, taking into account the rapid changes in our society which inevitably influence and change the nature of performance.
With new expectations for media, culture, and presence in a hyperconnected world, the civic stakes of the performing arts are shifting.
In a series of convenings, an international, interdisciplinary team of scholars and experts are collaborating to identify and map these shifts, seeking both the problems and opportunities that arise with new configurations of stages, cities, and publics.
Comparing and analyzing best practices and key ideas across a variety of areas, the group aims to produce an annual manifesto/report as reference and inspiration for governments, cultural institutions and arts organizations worldwide.
The project is coordinated by Jeffrey Schnapp and Paolo Petrocelli.
Members of the Research Group:
Matthew Battles (USA) Director of Scholarly Initiatives, metaLAB (at) Harvard
Cathie Boyd (Ireland/Scotland) Founder & Artistic Director, Cryptic
Marc Brickman (USA) Managing Director, Tactical Manoeuvre
Paolo Ciuccarelli (Italy/USA) Founding Director, Center for Design, Northeastern University, Boston
Wesley Cornwell (USA) Harvard Graduate School of Design
Lins Derry (USA) Principal, metaLAB (at) Harvard
Evenlyn Ficarra (UK) Associate Director, Centre for Research in Opera and Music Theatre, University of Sussex
Mariana Ibanez (Argentina/USA) Chair and Associate Professor, Architecture and Urban Design, UCLA; Co-founder, Ibanez Kim
Simone Kim (USA) Director, Immersive Kinematics Research Group; Co-founder, Ibañez Kim
Mohammed Obaidullah (Saudi Arabia) Producer
Jay Pather (South Africa) Director, Institute for Creative Arts, University of Cape Town
Paolo Petrocelli (Italy) Research Affiliate, metaLAB at Harvard
Cui Qiao (China) President, Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation
Magda Romanska (USA) Associate Professor of Theatre Studies and Dramaturgy, Emerson College; Research Affiliate, metaLAB at Harvard; Chair, Transmedia Arts Seminar at Mahindra Humanities Center and metaLAB; Executive Director and Editor-in-Chief, TheTheatreTimes
Adama Sanneh (ITA) Co-Founder and CEO, Moleskine Foundation
Anthony Sargent (UK) International Cultural Consultant
Jeffrey Schnapp (USA) Faculty Director, metaLAB (at) Harvard
Shain Shapiro (UK) Founder & CEO, Sound Diplomacy
Sydney Skybetter (USA) Founder, Conference for Research on Choreographic Interfaces
Jean-Philippe Thiellay (France) President, Centre national de la musique
Shahrokh Yadegari (USA) Director, Sonic Arts Research and Development group at the University of California San Diego; Director, Initiative for Digital Exploration of Arts and Sciences at the Qualcomm Institute
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Liam Klenk was born in Central Europe and has since lived on four continents. Liam has always been engaged in creative pursuits, ranging from photography and graphic design, to writing short stories and poetry, to working in theatre and shows. In 2016, Liam published his first book and memoir, 'Paralian'.
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