Cobra Lounge

COBRA LOUNGE Backstage

the electronic vaudeville,

new media performance.

COBRA LOUNGE was created by Mark "Spoonman" Petrakis in the late 1980s. From the beginning, it has served as an innovative showcase for new media performance in a full production venue. More than 200 artists have been featured over the course of fifteen sold-out COBRA LOUNGE events.

COBRA LOUNGE is hosted by Mark Petrakis in his "Spoonman" persona, vigorously enforcing a strict time limit and weaving strange tales of life in the "Spooniverse". He and his sensuous co-host, "Cobra Woman", create an air of mystery and mythology around the performances that set the tone for the spectacular sequence of events. It is this rich story-based context that provides inspiration for the COBRA participants to go over the edge in realizing new ideas.

COBRA LOUNGE took an evolutionary leap forward in May of 1992, when Petrakis presented three evenings of interactive performance for the annual ACM/SIGCHI conference, an international gathering of Computer/Human Interaction professionals in Monterey, California. The show, entitled "High Wire", featured five computer-based performers. Scott Rosenberg of the San Francisco Examiner wrote of that show.

"Provocative and instructive, the event typified a new form that's linking the distant worlds of avant-garde clubhoppers and computer engineers: electronic vaudeville. "High Wire", which Petrakis directed, never made the mistake of treating the show like a lecture-demonstration rather than a work of theater. By putting five acts together on one fast-paced bill, it illustrated the simple principle on which the electronic vaudeville operates: Only those innovators who pay attention to the most basic "interface" of all-that between performer and audience-can make something with their techno-toys that warrants the label of art." COBRA LOUNGE continued in the direction of evolving innovative computer-based performance last March and again this past June as part of Art Teco (a multimedia developer's conference) with shows that were even more adventurous in their real-time blending of performance and multimedia, rich content and interactive technology. The COBRA LOUNGE "Melt-O-Media" design team demonstrated their ability to keep technology subordinate and responsive to the onstage rush of improvisational energies.

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For more detailed information on COBRA LOUNGE history go to gopher.cyberwerks.com