York University’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design (AMPD) recently welcomed international performance organizations for the first research residency of Creative Collectivities: Rehearsing Equitable Futures through Participatory Technologies, a Connected Minds project exploring the role of emerging technologies in performance and social interaction.
Co-led by AMPD Professors Laura Levin and Michael Wheeler, Creative Collectivities is one of five projects funded through the inaugural Connected Minds Team Grants, which support interdisciplinary research examining how new technologies are shaping society.
The project brings together artists, researchers and technologists to explore how emerging technologies in combination with immersive theatre can investigate and recontextualize social connection and collective behaviour.
Creative Collectivities research residency
Held from February 24 to March 1, 2026, the research residency brought together five international performance organizations to Toronto to begin developing new technology-integrated theatre works in rehearsal spaces at Canadian Stage, St Lawrence Centre for the Arts, Meridian Hall, Young People's Theatre and Factory Theatre.
These works will continue to evolve with prototype presentations at The Festival of Live Digital Art (FOLDA) in 2027, and “Release Candidate” presentations at FOLDA in 2028
Participating organizations, each with a history of experimenting with digital and immersive media in performance, included:
SpiderWebShow Performance (Canada)
The Builders Association (United States)
Theatre Conspiracy (Canada)
bluemouth inc (Canada and United States)
United Against Colonization: Many Eyes, One Heart (Brazil)
The residency began at York University’s Sensorium Loft. Throughout the week, companies rehearsed and collaborated at performance venues across Toronto while exchanging ideas with the broader research team.
Exploring the social impacts of emerging technologies
For Professor Levin, bringing these organizations together created an opportunity to examine shared questions about how emerging technologies shape human behaviour and social systems.
"It was wonderful to witness the five performance groups develop and dream about new immersive artworks over the course of the residency,” says Professor Levin. “While each company is using a different artistic strategy for engaging with the impacts of emerging technologies on social behaviour, we are all addressing similar research questions and were able to collectively wrestle with political and ethical issues opened up by AI and immersive media.”
Conversations during the residency explored topics ranging from the political implications of surveillance, algorithmic bias and digital labour to the psychological effects of cognitive off-loading and the environmental costs of digital infrastructures.
For Professor Wheeler, one of the most valuable aspects of the residency was seeing how each research team approached emerging technologies from a different perspective.
“Each research collective used different lenses and value systems to approach and assess their work. Our aim is sophisticated performances that engage with different pressing functions of emerging technologies and how we relate to each other.”
He adds, “It was extremely valuable to foster the capacity of a research creation process to take on the world’s complex problems by holding multiple perspectives and occupying grey space.”
Pictured: Moe Angelos and David Pym
Pictured: David Mesiha and Gavan Cheema
Developing new approaches through research and performance
As the project continues, the research team will build on insights from the residency while developing new artistic and technological approaches to studying group interaction, cognition and well-being.
Professor Wheeler says the presence of an audience is central to how this work unfolds.
“I’m looking forward to the unique ways live performance and live audiences can open up new possibilities for research and knowledge mobilization. Because live performance requires an audience, and emerging technologies are often interactive, audiences play an essential role in fully realizing the work. That also creates genuine opportunities for the broader community to engage with and understand research driven through artistic processes.”
Professor Levin sees the project as a way of connecting artistic experimentation with broader social challenges.
“I am excited to explore how theatre and performance can be integrated with techno-scientific research to develop new methodologies for studying group interaction, cognition and well-being.
My hope is that these approaches will also lead to the design of new technologies and theatrical practices that help address major global challenges related to the erosion of social connectedness and civic participation.”
To learn more, visit the Connected Minds website.
Cover image: United against colonization: many eyes, one heart. Pictured left to right: Gustavo “Gurcius” Gewehr and Juma Pariri.