Future performance. We interview Simone Arcagni

Simone Arcagni. If you want to get a picture of the state of the art–we were told–clear evidence of what Web 3 technologies are bringing to the performing arts, ask him.
Good advice, and Simone is more than a friend of MEET as well, he is among the witnesses who enthusiastically participated in the roots of the new, (find his interview here) leaving us in the care of one of the cutest gadgets: a little tamagotchi eager for care. Said and done, we met on the call for an exchange of ideas, which you will find recorded below in a small podcast.
To make it easier to listen, we have divided the interview into three parts by interspersing our written questions with his answers.

Simone Arcagni these days in Settimo Torinese for Il Festival dell’Innovazione is Professor at the University of Palermo, scholar, consultant curator and popularizer of new media and new technologies, He collaborates with “Nòva-Il Sole24Ore”, “FilmTV”, “Tascabile”, “Segnocinema”, “Che Fare” . As a scientific consultant, he has worked and works for several organizations and institutes (RAI, Meet – International Center for Digital Culture, Rome Videogame Lab, VRE, Invisible Studio…), and since 2021 he is also a consultant for new media and new technologies for the National Museum of Cinema in Turin and is the scientific contact person for ANICA’s Union of Publishers and Digital Creators.

Simone Arcagni

Meet – We recently had the experience of experiencing Gilles Jobin’s performance here at Meet, a digital show that opens a new season of performance. Can you give me an overview of the stylistic and technical evolution that new technologies are bringing to the performing arts, theater and dance in particular? What are the most significant current innovations and the state of the art in live performance?

Meet – It’s really fascinating how digital has as a consequence first a real transition, as if everything somehow lost the edges that separated stylistic features, forms, technologies… We wonder: have the places of performance changed as well? Digital, and especially immersiveness leads us to an individual vision, which does not see us gathered in a single space to be shared physically… In what direction are we going?

Meet – We have come to talk about truly dizzying things. Already the Web has presented us with its extraordinary totalizing paradigm, and now the Metaverse presents us with a further one, even more complex and profound, where we not only learn, but where we live… And here is the question. Into this space we go! therefore, the spectator is perhaps no longer a spectator, but “part in the play.” Are we ready for this? Are we able to confront this vertigo?
And lastly, after all these changes, what does not change?