Telematic Quarantine, Paul Sermon
Channel: Telepresence Stage
Date: 2021-09-13

The first project undertaken by the research team was a collaboration with a number of remote performers from many corners of the globe, staged for the International Limestone Coast Video Art Festival (ILCVAF) in South Australia. Led by Paul Sermon in collaboration with Steve Dixon, Telematic Quarantine (2020) was streamed live on YouTube. It utilised a customised Skype connection to bring the international performers into Sermon’s home in Brighton, UK, for an uncanny COVID-themed encounter. Together, in a heavily layered video environment where participants moved through painterly-rendered 3D simulations of the rooms in Sermon’s actual house, they played, improvised, and shared their stories of self-isolation. Over the two and a half hour live performance, the ideas and interchanges varied widely as did the theatrical/filmic genres explored: from kitchen sink drama to political satire, and from hospital drama to magic realism and the theatre of the absurd.