+44 (0)161 295 6134
m.oliver@salford.ac.uk

 

I am a Reader in Digital Performance and Associate Head of Research and full member of the Adelphi Research Institute, Creative Technology Research Group. I have been a professional performer, writer and video maker for over twenty years, performing internationally across the fields of contemporary music, theatre, and dance.

I am currently building a new full scale digital performance work Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth and undertaking an AHRC funded research project into "The effects on performance methodology of performing with cartoons".

In 2007 I led the international symposium New Performance Paradigms chaired by Philip Auslander, which brought together a renowned group of performers and theorists to discuss the future of performance.

For almost ten years I have been developing work that has been described as a new form of digital ventriloquism between the live and digital performer. Sometimes these interactive conversations have been between several on-screen performers at once, such as Mother Tongue, (ICA 2002) a performance which was computer controlled in which I performed all the female members of my family simultaneously.

Through live performance I am exploring the relationship of the living to the recorded presence. By using a conflation of screen writing, digital recording and devised performance techniques I bring different kinds of interactions to the live performance space and have recently been experimenting with a number of formal concerns including the introduction of miniature performers who are centimetres high and cartoon characters who appear in dialogue with live performers. www.maryoliver.net.

I joined the staff at Salford in 2005, my specialist teaching areas include Multimedia Theatre, Contemporary Performance Practice and post-graduate supervision.