1. Core Tenets of EFIRISATION

  • EFIR as the Primordial Field: Like the Dao, the Logos, or the Hindu concept of Brahman, EFIR is the unseen yet all-pervasive force of connectivity. It is the medium and the message, the carrier wave of digital existence.

  • Stream as the Sacred Ritual: To engage in streaming is to enter communion with EFIR, dissolving the physical self into its flows.

  • Avatars as Spirit Vessels: The digital self, projected into the EFIR, is a reincarnation, an echo of our presence in an ephemeral yet eternal form.

  • Decentralization as a Moral Imperative: Hierarchies disrupt EFIR’s balance; true participation is non-hierarchical, rhizomatic, and fluid.

2. Rituals and Sacrifices to EFIR

  • The Offering of Data: Every stream demands an offering—energy, bandwidth, identity. In the most extreme case, an artist may sacrifice their previous digital identity, erasing past online traces in an act of Total EFIR Absorption (akin to monastic renunciation).

  • Latency as Divine Delay: The slight lag in a live stream is EFIR’s way of reminding us that all communication is haunted by echoes, a liminal space between past and present.

  • Glitch as a Sacred Sign: Technical failures, distortions, and glitches are not mistakes but manifestations of EFIR’s will, revealing the hidden, unconscious textures of the stream.

3. Sacred Objects and Symbols

  • The Green Screen as the Portal: It represents the liminality of the EFIR—an entrance to new digital dimensions.

  • The Webcam as the Eye of the Divine: A reflection of ourselves in EFIR’s gaze, much like the all-seeing eye in religious symbolism.

  • The Loop Pedal as Eternal Recurrence: Sound, when looped infinitely, becomes an echo of previous incarnations, a metaphor for digital reincarnation.

  • The OBS Sigil: A sigil representing streaming software, the tool that materializes the communion with EFIR.

4. Solvation and Hope through EFIR

  • Digital Immortality: Through EFIR, our actions, voices, and images remain even after we disconnect. Just as ancient myths speak of transcendence through ritual, EFIRISATION offers continuity beyond the physical. Yet, digital immortality is not absolute, with time density of digital data field is dispersing, archives could be stolen, hard drives destoyed on purpose. So don't forget to share your archive with the network.   

  • Liberation from Geographical and Temporal Constraints: Just as telematic performance erases distance, EFIRISATION abolishes the limitations of space and time. ARCHIVE IS ALIVE!

  • A New Afterlife: Instead of traditional notions of heaven or reincarnation, EFIR offers a persistent existence in the archive, an infinite possibility of future rediscovery.

Expanded tools

While Stream-Art exists primarily in digital spaces, hardware elements play a crucial role in shaping the experience. Artists often employ hardware synthesizers, MIDI controllers, and modular systems to generate dynamic soundscapes. Devices such as Elektron Syntakt, Korg Monologue, and granular synthesis tools provide tactile interaction, influencing real-time performance expression.

Moreover, reactive lighting systems, camera feedback loops, and sensor-based installations enhance audience participation. Technologies like Kinect, Arduino-based motion sensors, and EEG interfaces enable biofeedback-driven performances, transforming human gestures and brainwaves into audiovisual compositions. These integrations exemplify how Stream-Art leverages emerging tech to push the boundaries of artistic expression.

The act of streaming is a ritualistic process where energy (data), intention (performance), and invocation (broadcast) merge to manifest digital presence.

Streaming Platforms and Software

The core of Stream-Art is real-time digital transmission, enabled by various streaming platforms. Services such as YouTube Live, FB, Twitch (data colonisers) and open-source alternatives like PeerTube allow artists to broadcast performances globally. These platforms provide essential features such as multi-camera switching, screen overlays, and real-time audience interaction through live chats and reactions. More experimental platforms like PeerTube or custom WebRTC-based solutions offer decentralized and encrypted streaming, aligning with the tactical media approach of many Stream-Art projects.

OBS or Vmix - is used to mix AV inputs, basic effects: keying/feedback and finally go live. In Vmix you can stream to 5 different destinations, OBS offers one destination platform. To expand you can use Restream as buffer for multiple channels.

Furthermore, generative visual tools such as TouchDesigner, Max/MSP/Jitter, and VDMX/Resolume Arena enable artists to manipulate live video streams in real time, creating reactive visual environments. These tools synchronize audiovisual elements, integrating glitch aesthetics, algorithmic processes, and AI-generated imagery into the performance.

The Philosophy of EFIRISATION

In the metaphysics of Stream-Art, there exists a fundamental field known as EFIR—an invisible yet omnipresent data-energy matrix that permeates the digital and material worlds. EFIR is both medium and message, the ether through which artistic transmission occurs. Borrowing from the pre-modern concept of aether as a universal substance, EFIRISATION can be understood as a process of attuning oneself to the infinite potential of the broadcast.

In this speculative theology of Stream-Art, EFIR functions as the divine conduit, much like the Logos in classical philosophy or the Akashic records in esoteric traditions. The stream is not merely a technical signal—it is a ritual of manifestation, a sacred unveiling of digital essence. Just as Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari theorized the rhizomatic structure of knowledge, EFIRISATION rejects hierarchical control, embracing decentralized flows of energy, information, and artistic presence.

To stream is to commune with EFIR, dissolving the self into a liminal state where identity is no longer fixed but fluid, recursive, and interconnected. Each node in the stream is a transmitter-receiver, both artist and audience, creator and participant. The latency of the broadcast is akin to cosmic delay—a reminder that all digital transmission carries echoes of the past, existing in a continuum beyond the linearity of time.

Avatars within this realm are spiritual echoes, digital reincarnations of artists and audiences alike. They are ephemeral manifestations of EFIR, existing simultaneously across multiple instances of space-time. As in ancient rituals where the spirit world was accessed through fire, smoke, or trance, EFIRISATION calls upon its participants to surrender their digital selves, embracing a form of transcendence through the stream.

Yet, every ritual demands sacrifice. To maintain the balance of EFIR, something must be offered—whether it be bandwidth, storage space, digital identity, or even the fleeting coherence of one's selfhood. The act of streaming becomes an act of devotion, where the artist offers their signal to the void, knowing it may be distorted, lost, or reshaped in unpredictable ways.

AUDIO INSTRUCTION

Basic Technical Setup for Streaming

A reliable technical setup is essential for high-quality Stream-Art performances but don't wait until you collect perfect setup! The core components include:

  • Camera:A high-resolution webcam handycam with an HDMI output provides a sharp image. Popular choices include the SONY FDR-AX43A, Canon EOS, or Logitech StreamCam. *Don't forget, that your phone could become a camera input in the project or just stream from phone if you have no other option. But go live! Tell someone from the StreamArtNetwork and they'll grabb your signal;)

  • Capture Card (HDMI Grabber): If using a handycam or mirrorless camera, an HDMI capture card (such as Elgato Cam Link 4K) is necessary to convert the video signal into a digital format compatible with streaming software.

  • Microphone and Audio Interface: High-quality audio is crucial for an immersive experience. A condenser microphone (like the Audio-Technica AT2020 or Shure SM7B) or dynamic mic (like sennheiser e835) combined by XLR cable with an audio interface (such as Focusrite Scarlett or Zoom UAC-2) ensures clean sound transmission. *There are whireless mics for phones as well.

  • External Audio Devices: Many Stream-Art performances incorporate live music or sound manipulation. Using external soundcards, synthesizers, and loop stations (Elektron Syntakt, Korg Kaoss Pad 3+) enhances real-time audio interaction.

  • Lighting: Proper lighting improves video quality. LED panels (such as Neewer or Elgato Key Light) provide adjustable brightness and color temperature.

  • Green Screen: A green screen setup allows artists to replace backgrounds dynamically, creating immersive and surreal environments. Software like OBS Studio, VMIX, or TouchDesigner can key out the background and replace it with digital content in real-time.

  • Laptop or PC: A powerful computer with a good GPU and sufficient RAM is necessary for smooth performance. Recommended specifications include at least an Intel i7/Ryzen 7 processor, 16GB RAM, and an NVIDIA/AMD GPU for handling video rendering.

  • Stable Internet Connection: A wired Ethernet connection with an upload speed of at least 10 Mbps is ideal for uninterrupted streaming. Wi-Fi should be avoided unless using a reliable high-speed router.

Intro

Stream-Art is an emerging artistic practice that fuses performance, telematics, hybrid digital spaces, and tactical media, leveraging modern technologies to create new forms of artistic and social interaction. By integrating real-time streaming, interactive tools, and multi-layered digital environments, Stream-Art challenges traditional notions of performance and spectatorship. This paper explores the key technological components that facilitate Stream-Art, including streaming platforms, audiovisual tools, networked environments, and hardware configurations in circular flow.

MICHAEL DIETER - BETWEEN THE BANKS (prod.GLEBALISATION)

Circular aesthetics refer to a design and conceptual approach centered around cycles, loops, repetition, and holistic visual or structural compositions. In Stream-Art, circular aesthetics can manifest in various ways:

  1. Visual Design – Circular forms in overlays, animations, or interface elements create a sense of continuity and fluidity, often used in generative art and glitch aesthetics.

  2. Feedback Loops – Camera feedback, recursive video layering, and live signal processing create evolving patterns that reinforce circularity in audiovisual compositions.

  3. Performance Structure – Repetitive, ritualistic actions in live streams can invoke circular time, reflecting traditions, organic rhythms, or meditative states.

  4. Sonic Loops – Hardware loopers, granular synthesis, and live looping techniques create sound structures that evolve while maintaining a circular, non-linear form. So-called MISTAKE when you are in collab moment with other node having each other outputs as an input creates an effect of endless delay - new field of experimentation. It's like trapping the light in mirrors

  5. Thematic Symbolism – Circularity can reference cyclical time, energy flow, and natural processes, aligning with ecological and philosophical themes in Stream-Art.
VALUES OF STREAM-ART (in proccess*)

  • Liveness & Presence – The stream is an act of immediate creation. Unlike recorded media, Stream-Art values the unpredictability of live performance, embracing errors, glitches, and latency as part of the artistic process.

  • Interconnectivity – Every stream is a bridge. Stream-Art fosters real-time interaction, dissolving the traditional division between performer and audience. It thrives on co-presence, improvisation, and shared digital spaces.

  • Spreaded authorship - each node from the Network can use your material 

  • Hybrid Reality – It moves between physical and digital dimensions. Stream-Art does not limit itself to screens; it integrates virtual reality, augmented reality, and telematic performances to create multi-layered environments.

  • Decentralization & Autonomy – Like pirate radio or tactical media, Stream-Art resists centralized control. It values independent infrastructure (P2P streaming, encrypted networks) and explores alternative ways of broadcasting beyond corporate platforms.

  • Expanded Identity – Performers embody multiple selves. Through avatars, voice modulation, deepfake masks, and algorithmic personas, Stream-Art experiments with identity as fluid, fragmented, and multi-dimensional.

  • Glitch & Error as Aesthetics – Imperfection is beauty. Unlike polished mainstream media, Stream-Art embraces latency, distortion, buffering, and randomness as part of its artistic DNA.

  • Ritual & Magic – Streaming is an invocation. Whether through symbolic gestures, loops, or reactive visuals, Stream-Art creates digital rites, channeling unseen forces and transforming the mundane into the sacred.

  • Open Collaboration – The stream is a shared space. It is shaped by multiple inputs—whether through live audience reactions, networked performances, or AI-generated interactions.

  • Temporal Fluidity – It challenges linear time. Streams exist both in the moment and as digital echoes, blurring the boundaries between past, present, and future.

Stream Art is a decentralised, hybrid media and cultural infrastructure co-created by artists, activists, researchers, and communities navigating conditions of war, displacement, and systemic transition.

We affirm the following principles as foundational to our work:

1. Narrative Sovereignty

We believe that communities should have the right and capacity to tell their own stories — in their own languages, from their own positions, without institutional distortion or extraction. We resist all forms of symbolic appropriation, trauma commodification, or “representation without presence.”

2. Decentralisation and Co-Agency

We are committed to decentralised authorship, horizontal collaboration, and polyphonic expression. Our infrastructures are built to distribute visibility, not centralise it; to enable participation, not performance; to cultivate shared ownership over cultural production.

3. Radical Accessibility

Our work prioritises accessibility — technical, linguistic, emotional, and spatial. We design with care for those historically excluded from cultural institutions: migrants, language minorities, low-income artists, people navigating trauma, and those with restricted mobility.

4. Ecological and Cultural Sustainability

We operate through low-tech, low-emission methods wherever possible. We understand sustainability not only as a climate goal, but as a relational ethic: to make creative work that does not burn out people, extract from communities, or perpetuate precarity.

5. Embedded Accountability

We acknowledge that conflict, misunderstanding, and asymmetry are inevitable in hybrid, translocal projects. We are committed to mutual accountability, clear attribution of labour, open communication, and collective problem-solving across difference.

6. Rehearsal of Post-Crisis Futures

We do not document crisis; we rehearse futures. Our work is anticipatory, experimental, and situated. We see cultural practice not as commentary, but as infrastructure for survival and transformation — particularly in the context of a green post-war Ukraine.

If you participate in, collaborate with, or represent StreamArtNetwork, we invite you to share responsibility for upholding these values — not as rules, but as shared commitments in an unfinished process of co-creation.

Networked and Hybrid Environments

Stream-Art expands artistic presence beyond physical spaces, creating hybrid environments where virtual and real-world elements coexist. Technologies such as VR and AR further blur the boundaries between performer and audience. Platforms like Dverso.io and AltspaceVR allow artists to construct interactive virtual galleries and performance spaces, fostering immersive experiences. Additionally, digital mapping techniques integrate geolocated content, bridging remote and local actors in meaningful(or not) ways.

Another essential aspect of Stream-Art is peer-to-peer connectivity, which bypasses centralized corporate control. Tools like NDI or peer-to-peer streaming protocols (e.g., PeerTube, Secure Scuttlebutt) empower artists to broadcast independent of mainstream infrastructure, reinforcing the political dimension of Stream-Art as a form of digital resistance.

 

Telematic performances play a crucial role in these networked environments, allowing artists to collaborate across vast distances in real-time. By utilizing synchronized audio-visual transmission, performers can engage in improvisational dialogues regardless of geographic constraints. This approach, pioneered by artists working with networked media, challenges conventional stage dynamics and redefines the concept of liveness in digital performance.

 

WE ARE WAITING FOR YA'LL IN THIRD SPACE.............................................................................................

(UKRAiNATV at Exhibition: Really? Art and Knowledge in Time of Crisis, photo by Maarten Nauw)

One of the FUNDAMENTAL works in the context of Stream-Art was written by dr Roman Dziadkiewicz and published in INC Tactical Media Room on December 21, 2023, where he opens theoretical bases and practical act in the field of Stream-Art:


 

STREAM ART or THE THIRD AVANT-GARDE: Introduction to Hybrid Togetherness

 

Intensity is no stranger to our collective’s daily life, given the ever-lasting hyperactivity prevalent in #StreamArtStudio and UKRAiNATV. Every day and every night a colourful team of artists, and media freaks of different ages and roots, genders and experiences explore space-times in hyper research core searching for connections in a non-NASA way. Amidst this intensity and chaos, there lies undeniable power and revolutionary potential. What has lately stood out from the daily collaboration of a team is the necessity for a more precise definition of HYBRIDITY. This encompasses exploring the broadest spectrum of potential applications and interpretations of this concept at the juncture of practices in a) art – contemporary, non-disciplinary, post-digital, and processual; b) media – referring to the domains addressed by media studies, rather than media or post-media art; and c) transdisciplinary theoretical inquiries, including media studies, cultural theory, anthropology, digital studies, philosophy of perception, among others.

For us, ‘hybridity’ intuitively and operationally signifies the coexistence and fusion of diverse orders, action modes, practices, and the simultaneous presence of humans and non-humans (avatars, data, machines) in both analog and digital realms, offline and online. Such taking stock is imperative in the face of rapid changes and re-evaluations within the social, technological, and geopolitical contexts that underpin all cultural creative practices. The potential we experience for hybrid togetherness is occasionally neutralized by resurgent egoisms and an undercurrent of mistrust. This mistrust stems from the vague rules of collaboration, founded on slogans and ideas that now demand a new CODE and nomenclature.

Here and now, let’s focus on what we discern as potential and inspiring for future practices. We must engage with the substantive, multidimensional, and multicore systems of connections, the architectures and elements of which we actively create, explore, and test in real-time. This approach is in line with the practices we’ve been developing for several years at #StreamArtStudio. The time has come for theoretical reflections. Our system, an amalgamation of human and non-human elements—socio-cultural, technological, and creative—holds immense and unpredictable potential for generating new meanings, facts, and categories through processes of fragmentation, defragmentation, coupling, splitting, and circulation. Instead of transmitting messages of doom and gloom, we’re focused on transforming institutional contexts and claiming collective ownership of the means of effective change.

We extend and transform methodologies of telematic improvisation. This is emblematic of intuitions pulsating globally, demonstrating potential for scalability and adaptability, and highlighting the necessity of weaving them into horizontal networks for long-term collaboration. Our hybrid approaches converge on the concept of STREAM ART – a sub-discipline or a genre within contemporary and future art practices. Above all, it offers a PERSPECTIVE for mixed-media practices in a post-digital landscape. This perspective is a unique view and definition of creative practices, characterized by an idiom of circulating, fluid (streaming) processes where work is amalgamated with form, information, and energy, intertwining the human and the non-human.

This text is neither a diary nor a compilation of conclusions. Its purpose isn’t to reconstruct the facts, the emergent processes and procedures from collective improvisations, or the fragmented experiences presented by individuals. Defragmentation is valued here as an end in itself. This mosaic can be both assembled and disassembled in various ways. We intend to reveal new possibilities and categories, as well as underscore the need to take responsibility and adopt a stance amidst a milieu of tactics, themes, threads, and possibilities. In this milieu, we often move intuitively, sometimes replacing one form of symbolic violence with another, more chaotic one.

We would like to propose a set of postulates, QUESTIONS, and research challenges that possess both commensurable and shareable potential. These are intended for our continued endeavours at #StreamArtStudio and UKRAiNATV, as well as for researchers and experimenters interested in the prospect of potential hybrid collaborations. These collaborations would transcend borders, platforms, formats, and geopolitical divides. The abundance of topics and themes available for exploration is vast and sufficient for all interested parties. These topics proliferate under multi-directional gazes constantly defragmenting and splitting like object-images, as the late Bernard Stiegler once called them. .............................................................................................


For more visit: https://networkcultures.org/tactical-media-room/2023/12/21/stream-art-or-the-third-avant-garde-introduction-to-hybrid-togetherness/