Design in Action: Unpacking the Artists’ Role in Performance-Led Research (original) (raw)
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Revue d’Historiographie du Théâtre 4. Special Issue: Études théâtrales et humanités numériques, 2017
After a critical presentation of the state of the art in scholarly activities at the intersection of theatre and digital humanities, in Canada and elsewhere, this paper suggests how the two disciplines might work together to articulate and facilitate new modalities of knowledge production emerging in each individually. Its aim is to make explicit the values of the inventive knowledge production characteristic of design and performance, and to propose that theatre and digital humanities might best acknowledge and enable inventive knowledge by shifting their emphasis away from production-oriented prototyping and towards experimental prototyping, provotyping, and experience design. Du développement des outils au design expérimental Jusqu'à présent, les chercheurs travaillant à l'intersection des études théâtrales et des humanités numériques ont eu tendance à se lancer dans le développement d'outils électroniques, conçus pour faciliter deux grands modes de création de savoirs: à travers des recherches sur l'histoire du théâtre (y compris la numérisation et l'archivage de textes ou de traces de représentations), ou à travers l'aide à la création théâtrale (à savoir la facilitation et la documentation des processus de création). Dans les deux branches d'activité, l'accent a été mis sur le développement d'outils prêts à l'emploi, ou de prototypes prêts pour la mise en production, susceptibles d'être disséminés largement et appliqués à des contextes variés par toute sorte d'utilisateurs, avec leurs objectifs spécifiques. Dans d'autres mots, la recherche à l'intersection du théâtre et des humanités numériques a été orientée par la création de produits et de plateformes ; nous avons imité les entreprises commerciales de production de software avec notre ambition de créer des objets numériques qui puissent aider d'autres chercheurs à générer ou à transmettre des savoirs. Quoique les outils qui en ont résulté, ainsi que notre engagement critique avec leurs épistémologiques, ont été une réussite (au Canada, ils se comptent parmi les plus notables dans le champ des humanités numériques), les objectifs et les méthodes qui ont porté ce travail ont eu relativement peu d'impact sur les buts et les méthodes, établis ou émergents, soit des humanités numériques, soit des études théâtrales comme disciplines indépendantes. En me fondant sur les projets que je connais le mieux – principalement des projets canadiens dans les humanités numériques et mon propre Simulated Environment for Theatre (SET)-, je souhaite soutenir ici que les humanités numériques ont à offrir plus aux études théâtrales, et réciproquement. L'idée principale de cet article est que les réussites du projet SET, qui a su répondre aux tendances dominantes dans son domaine, sont moins intéressantes que les possibilités suggérées par ses échecs et ses à côtés, surtout dans le champ de la construction du savoir et des objets d'étude. Le théâtre et les humanités numériques pourraient aller plus loin et tirer plus de profit en mettant moins l'accent sur le prototypage orienté vers la production, et en se consacrant plus à un prototypage expérimental ou au « provotypage », pour faire plus de place, dans un champ dominé par des méthodes de recherche issues des sciences sociales ou des sciences exactes, à des méthodes plus propres aux sciences humaines et susceptibles créer, sans exclusive, des savoirs
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This chapter explores issues associated with the use of technology in performance. Why is the use of technology seen by many as a threat to the liveness of the performance event? Does the use of technology necessarily distract the audience and detract from the art? Can there be a seamless integration within the performance event? What are the implications for designing for performance in and for, an increasingly technologically oriented world? Drawing on the work of key practitioners (including Robert Wilson, Josef Svoboda, and Robert Lepage), I aim to investigate the links between the use of technology and the creation of scenographic statements on stage. Whilst concentrating primarily on the convergence of digital and projection technologies, the article will advocate new ways of working if such technology is to be integrated successfully into performance work. An account of an exploratory project involving dance, digital media and projection is provided as part of an argument that attempts to counter suggestions that performance and technology, art and science are fundamentally incompatible.
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In today's Age of Participation, co-creation, user-generated content and social networking have become part of a mass-appeal digital lifestyle. This paper discusses potential implications for contemporary and future media art in the context of the stage. It reflects on why and how interactive performances could give consideration to this Zeitgeist of empowered spectatorship and, moreover, proposes principles for participatory stage pieces that incorporate practice-based experience as well as findings from (Social) Flow theory, a psychological framework for optimal creative experience that we found to be valuable for fostering audience engagement in interactive dramaturgies.
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As digital design increasingly inscribes its own narrative from the outset of the rehearsal process, twenty-first century theatre artists and audiences are becoming more and more accustomed to porous dramaturgies, influenced by information technologies and digital articulations. This article explores the use of technology in contemporary performance by interrogating the diverse functions of the multimedia element by touching on a number of theoretical and practice-related issues: How has technology affected performance both in terms of creative strategies and audience experience? What are some of the pleasures and dangers involved in the omni-presence of the media in today’s theatre landscape? How has digital articulation enhanced, ironized or redefined structure and characterization? Under what conditions can the encounter of corporeal presence with an electronically interceded image provide meaningful experiences for the audience? Bringing in examples from different multimedia productions, I will try to illustrate a work method of compositional dramaturgy, where the philosophy that structures the mise-en-scène draws from the visual as well as ontological collision between the live and the mediated.
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While there have been a handful of learning scientists who have championed research in theatrical spaces, there is still so much more to learn from these incredibly rich learning environments. FORTS is an immersive theatrical production and informal learning space where participants actively co-create knowledge through improvisational and collaborative processes. It was developed by a team of theatrical designers in much the same way that learning scientists design learning environments-through iterative cycles of design. This qualitative case study examines what the lead designer of FORTS learned through engaging in its design and implementation. A narrative of the design process was constructed from an interview with the designer which discussed her goals, original design decisions, expectations, feedback, reflections, and iterative design decisions. The theme of agency emerged as foundational to the designer's iterative process and to her shifting understanding of the relationship between immersive theatre design and its participants.
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We explore whether idiographic design, a category of interaction design that focuses upon responding to detailed personal accounts of individuals’ practices, can be used to support interaction designers in responding to the complex and multifaceted design space posed by live performance. We describe and reflect upon the application of an idiographic approach during the design of Waves, an interface for live VJ performance. This approach involved a close and dialogical engagement with the practices and experiences of an individual live performer, during a series of semi-structured interviews and then the discussion and iteration of an evolving prototypical design. Reflection on the experience of applying this approach highlights idiographic design as a practical means to support interaction designers in proposing innovative designs that respond sensitively to the kinds of subtle and complex issues that underpin people’s lived and felt experiences of live performance and, potentially, many other domains.
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