The WELL: inkwell.vue.98: honoria in ciberspazio

#41: Cynthia Dyer-Bennet (cdb) Fri 6 Apr 01 13:54

Fri, 06 Apr 2001 13:54:00 PDT

What excellent news! Congrats, honoria. [Read entire topic]

#40: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Thu 5 Apr 01 20:45

Thu, 05 Apr 2001 20:45:00 PDT

Yay, Honoria!! [Read entire topic]

#39: Linda Castellani (castle) Thu 5 Apr 01 18:55

Thu, 05 Apr 2001 18:55:00 PDT

Congratulations, honoria!! How exciting. What an honor! [Read entire topic]

#38: honoria (honoria-opera) Thu 5 Apr 01 18:36

Thu, 05 Apr 2001 18:36:00 PDT

Cyberopera News!!! Lovesong & fleurish, honoria

----------------------------------------------------- From: Allucquere Rosanne Stone <sandy@sandystone.com> Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 02:21:17 -0500 Subject: discuss: WAY TO GO, HONORIA!

From April 18th to 23rd, Valencia, Spain becomes the Shakespeare capital of the world, and our own Honoria's cyberopera "Honoria in Ciberspazio" (http://www.cyberopera.org) was chosen to be the most important event in the opening ceremony of the Seventh World Shakespeare Congress.

Now, as of this evening, even better news has arrived.

The Fura Dels Baus, previously described in a posting here a few days ago, has accepted an offer to make "Honoria in Ciberspazio" into their eighth artistic project. During the World Shakespeare Congress, twenty-five actors, musicians and dancers, twelve technicians, and twenty-five Valencian students under the direction of Charles Padrissa (Fura Dels Baus) and Vicente For*s (University of Valencia) will develop a complete musical score online as specified in Honoria's original proposal, and the libretto will be translated into most of the languages that will be spoken at the Congress. Professor Flores comments: "They used to translate Shakespeare; now "Honoria" will change their lives."

"Honoria in Ciberspazio" was workshopped as an ACTLab and CWRL University of Texas at Austin project and had its premiere webcast in 1995 before webcasts as we know them existed, as a CU-SeeMe transmission originating from a makeshift proscenium stage in Sandy Stone's living room. Online interest was so great that our primitive servers buckled under the load. The original cast included John Slatin as the Blind Prophet of Cyberspace; Sandy Stone as the Cyborg; Linda Montano as Sandy Stone; Scott Alton Dulaney as Honoria; Geoffry Thomas as Bookish; Heath Rezabek as Rez; also starring Bryan Green, Justin Smith, Heather Kelley Leeway, Barna Kantor, Knut Graf, Ryan Goertz, and (shortly) George Oldziey. Subsequently, the opera has been webcast and performed live many times. It has won more awards than can be mentioned here.

Over the years other organizations have attempted to lay claim to the title "First Opera in Cyberspace". "Honoria in Ciberspazio" still precedes the earliest of them by more than a year.

An ACTLab contingent, led by Honoria herself, will be present in Valencia for the unveiling of the new project. Broadcast and webnews are scheduled for Thursday, April 19th and Friday, April 20th from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Here's kudos to Honoria for the vision and persistence to bring to fruition a groundbreaking, worldchanging idea. And the fun's just beginning.

*** THEY USED TO TRANSLATE SHAKESPEARE *** *** NOW HONORIA WILL CHANGE THEIR LIVES ***

--- Take Risks -- Make Stuff -- Think Convergent Media --- [Read entire topic]

#37: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Mon 1 Jan 01 15:48

Mon, 01 Jan 2001 15:48:00 PST

Thanks, honoria! [Read entire topic]

#36: David Scott Marley (nightdog) Mon 1 Jan 01 12:20

Mon, 01 Jan 2001 12:20:00 PST

Thanks, and thanks to honoria -- I've had a good time. [Read entire topic]

#35: Linda Castellani (castle) Mon 1 Jan 01 01:31

Mon, 01 Jan 2001 01:31:00 PST

Thanks for being such a great guest, honoria, and for hanging in there over the holidays!

And thanks, too, to nightdog for being such a great interviewer! [Read entire topic]

#34: honoria (honoria-opera) Sun 31 Dec 00 18:20

Sun, 31 Dec 2000 18:20:00 PST

Since this is the last day of this interview I'd like to thank Scott and Jon for asking such interesting questions. I'm looking forward to Bruce Sterling's interview next year/millennium on the morrow.

ciao! and happy new year!!! [Read entire topic]

#33: honoria (honoria-opera) Sat 30 Dec 00 16:16

Sat, 30 Dec 2000 16:16:00 PST

Hi Jon, Welcome back. Hope your holidays are very fun. The characters in the opera all relate to the personalities of their real human counterparts. .rez is an idealistic and passionate young man with very romantic ideas about relationships. Much of the .rez character was written by the leri group, the online community that the real .rez belonged to when I met him. Sandy is based on Sandy Stone. Her character is a muscian and philosopher. Sandy's text was written by several of her students and other people who know her. Bookish is an intellectual who lives in Ohio. I met him once. He lives for bookstores, in fact, he now owns one, Pauper's Books in Bolling Green. The text for bookish was written by a number of people who are theorists in communications and networks. We used these real personalities to collate the text that we received. If the poetry just sounded right for bookish, or for the oracle we applied it to that character and worked out the sequence and story gradually as the personalities' text accumulated.

The honoria character is based on me as an artist venturing into the online world from the art world, specifically the international snail mail linked world of correspondence art. Honoria experiences the other characters and clones with a certain detatchment and watches patterns emerge. The whole opera may be her dream or her creation or she may be the dream or creation of the oracle/cyborg. But at the end the dream, whosever it was comes true in a moment of color truth and beauty.

Honoria was a name I chose when I started my life as a networker in a pen pal club, then in mail art. She came from Dorothy L. Sayers wonderful 1930's murder mystery series. She was Lord Peter Whimsy's mother, the Dowager Duches of Denver, who liked to write letters and frequently misused words in a witty way and had no worries about money. honoria was a natural extension of that persona for my online persona too but she was part of my life/lives before my online experiences. She came to me at a time when I was too busy to just be one person acting as both an artist and as head of household. So I split the two jobs into the two characters. Honoria is the artist and risk-taker. Madelyn is the person who holds everything together and pays the bills. It's easier to have the two of us handling things instead of just one multi-multi-tasking person. I recommend split personalitying yourself, especially if you are going to tackle big projects that last for years. I have some other personalities that come in handy when I need to have some other voices. They would have been here too but Madelyn won't let them all have well accounts.

Since honoria handles all the opera stuff she ends up doing Madelyn type things like writing proposals and paying for things like honoraria for singers, sound equipment, and fees. She is not built for administrivia and can't wait to unload that part of the production to professionals but she's learned a lot in the process. For years honoria has been the main character in Madelyn's life. Many people don't know honoria has another name. [Read entire topic]

#32: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Fri 29 Dec 00 19:53

Fri, 29 Dec 2000 19:53:00 PST

Honoria, could you talk about how .rez and others in the opera relate to real persons who were involved in the creation of the piece, including the character honoria, how she relates to the person honoria, and perhaps how the person honoria relates to Madelyn Starbuck? I've always been fascinated by the aspect of fluid identity in your various projects. [Read entire topic]