Andrew Schneider on Designing Experience and Performing Reality

Biographies

Andrew Schneider

Andrew Schneider is mostly interested in how humans telling stories about ourselves to each other can make us better at being humans. And how much the second law of thermodynamics and grief have in common.

He is an OBIE award-winning, Drama Desk nominated performer, writer, and interactive-electronics artist creating original works for theater, dance, sound, video, and installation since 2003.

“We live in an increasingly synthetic world of our own making. In the name of more and faster connection, we are animals that have separated ourselves from the actual world around us. The work I make is highly technical, but It is not about the technology. I am more interested in the application of the technology and how it can bring us closer together, shake us from the synthetic, and offer a genuine experience to every audience member’s consciousness, rather than just watching something “over there”. I am interested in how creating meaningful time-based experiences can lead to more meaningful human-to-human interaction. If theater at its core is humans telling stories about ourselves to each other, then I hope it is in the service of getting better at being human. This is why I make the work that I make. This is also how I try to make the work that I make – with value-aligned recurring collaborators who are interested not just in the work of making experience, but in a vigorous interrogation of what power structures exist in the rooms in which we make and how to systemically try to make change in inequitable systems.”

Right before the pandemic Andrew premiered the choreographic work »remains« commissioned by the Sasha Waltz & Guests company at Radialsystem in Berlin, Germany.

Over the past two years, he has focused on demonstrating in the streets, organizing for social justice, facilitating a group to look at systemic oppression and privilege with other white men, and creating the technical infrastructure for a time-based, narrative, immersive, light and sound installation dealing with grief, loss, and presentness.

Original performance work in NYC includes NERVOUS/SYSTEM (2018 – BAM Next Wave); AFTER (2018 – Under the Radar, The Public Theater); YOUARENOWHERE (2015 OBIE award, 2016 Drama Desk nom); DANCE/FIELD (2014 – Roulette); TIDAL (2013 – River to River); and WOW+FLUTTER (2010 – The Chocolate Factory Theater), among others.

Andrew has been a recurring collaborator with The TEAM, Lars Jan / Early Morning Opera, Annie Saunders, David Dorfman Dance, Hotel Savant, and Fischerspooner. His off-broadway designs include Dolphins and Sharks at the Labyrinth Theater; Small Mouth Sounds at Ars Nova and the Signature Theater; and Roosevelvis at the Vineyard Theater. Schneider has taught master classes on Technology and Performance at Bowdoin, Carleton, and Connecticut College. He was a 2019 Professor of the Practice and Visiting Fellow in Theater Arts and Performance Studies through the Brown Arts Initiative at Brown University. Andrew holds a BFA in Theater Arts from Illinois Wesleyan University and a Masters Degree in Interactive Telecommunications from NYU.

Andrew is a recipient of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award (2020), was a Sundance “Art of the Practice” fellow (2021), and has received a fellowship from the Junge Akademie / Akademie Der Künste in Berlin (2022). He teaches a recurring class on original-flavor reality at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU where he is currently a postdoctoral fellow.

Moderator – Michael Ang

Michael Ang is an artist, engineer, and teacher who creates light objects, interactive installations, and technological tools that expand the possibilities of human expression and connection. Applying a hacker’s aesthetic, he often repurposes existing technology to create human-centered experiences in public space and the open field. Countering the trend for technology to dissociate us from ourselves and surroundings, Michael’s works connect us to each other and the experience of the present moment. He is the co-inventor of the Infl3ctor, the projection system for Digital Calligraffiti. He currently teaches in the Interactive Media program at NYU Abu Dhabi.

Michael’s work has been shown internationally at Ars Electronica, Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA), ISEA, Media Architecture Biennale, transmediale, White Wall Beirut, Gray Area Foundation For The Arts, Art Hack Day, NASA Ames Research Center, SPEKTRUM Berlin, Urban Media Art Academy, Calligrafreaks, Citilab Cornellà, and many others. He holds a Master’s Degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at New York University, USA and a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Canada.