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The StartUp is a cross-disciplinary workshop series that aims to immerse participants in thought provoking demonstrations of new media technologies and live performance.

Starting on Wednesday, the four-day workshop is presented in partnership with Ingenuity Labs and curated by the as part of the Festival of Live Digital Art (FOLDA).

Organizing The Startup is undergraduate student Seymour Irons who received funding from the Undergraduate Student Summer Research Fellowship (USSRF) and an Undergraduate Student Research Awards (USRA) from the (SSHRC). 

This award, which supports more than 3,000 students annually, is part of a new initiative by the Tri-Agencies (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and SSRHC) to support increased research opportunities for Black scholars with a small number of awards available nationally.

“I joined the project to research audience interactions with technology in a performance setting,” Irons says. “I am workshopping my first theater piece and hope to find ways to bring technology into the production. I also want to develop my understanding of motion capture and VR performance as well as developing connections with industry professionals, researchers and artists.”

The goals of The StartUp include: strengthening the performing arts sector’s engagement with digital tools, to build ties and connections between the technology and arts and culture sectors, and to explore how a live art festival can be an incubator that includes blind, deaf and disabled artists as equal partners.