About the Talk:
Through Charlotte’s experiences working with children as a teacher and a daycare worker, she has noticed that puppeteering generates a strong urge in the audience to grab, hit, and handle the puppet. This urge is (of course) more pronounced in young audiences, but she believes it points to tactile and grabbable evocations that are inherent to puppetry.
Drawing on the aesthetics of browser games from the 2010’s (Miniclip, coolmathgames.com, Talking Tom, etc), Charlotte will record their puppetry performance and use HTML to make the videos into a simple point-and-click game. Utilizing the potential for responsiveness and interaction unique to digital media, this ‘game’ will bring together traditional puppetry and new media in order to explore the audience’s desire to be physically involved with the puppet’s story – going beyond what would be possible in a live performance.
The talk will include a brief history of Charlie’s interest in puppetry, a quick and accessible puppetry lesson, and will culminate in a demonstration of the HTML game.
About Charlotte MacLean:
Charlotte MacLean, otherwise known as Charlie, is an emerging artist who works with a wide array of media. Their work brings handcrafted people, places, and things into digital worlds using experimental performance.
Charlie’s practice runs the gamut from oil painting, to puppets, to Unity Game Engine. The cross- disciplinarity of her practice is fuelled by restlessness, as well as a curiosity and love of play.
Charlie graduated with a BFA from NSCAD in 2023, and in 2024 they were video artist in residence at the Centre for Art Tapes. During the Expanded Practice Residency, they will build on their experience at Mermaid Theatre’s Animotion Puppetry Intensive.