Audience Experience in Sound Performance (original) (raw)
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Interactive systems are throughly scru0nized in the lengthy article. Of particular interest to the author are the question of space and sound projection, interpretation of electronic sounds and the relationship between performer and technology.
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2012
As a part of the research project Voice Meetings, a solo liveelectronic vocal performance was presented for 63 students. Through a mixed method approach applying both written and oral response, feedback from one blindfolded and one seeing audience group was collected and analyzed. There were marked differences between the groups regarding focus, in that the participants in blindfolded group tended to focus on fewer aspects, have a heightened focus and be less distracted than the seeing group. The seeing group, on its part, focused more on the technological instruments applied in the performance, the performer herself and her actions. This study also shows that there were only minor differences between the groups regarding the experience of skill and control, and argues that this observation can be explained by earlier research on skill in NIMEs.
...this document is not an analysis or examination of any particular installation, interaction, or participation based works. Instead the focus is upon recent studies and resources discussing the topic of audience interaction, audience participation, installations, and the challenges posed therein. A conscience effort has made to limit the discussion to sound installations, however there has been necessity to have recourse to other types of installations beyond that of sound, as well as other current forms of interaction and participation that are conducive to creating a coherent probe at the ongoing discourse.
Design Implications For Technology-Mediated Audience Participation In Live Music
Proceedings of the SMC Conferences, 2017
Mobile and sensor-based technologies have created new interaction design possibilities for technology-mediated audience participation in live music performance. However, there is little if any work in the literature that systematically identifies and characterises design issues emerging from this novel class of multi-dimensional interactive performance systems. As an early contribution towards addressing this gap in knowledge, we present the analysis of a detailed survey of technology-mediated audience participation in live music, from the perspective of two key stakeholder groupsmusicians and audiences. Results from the survey of over two hundred spectators and musicians are presented, along with descriptive analysis and discussion. These results are used to identify emerging design issues, such as expressiveness, communication and appropriateness. Implications for interaction design are considered. While this study focuses on musicians and audiences, lessons are noted for diverse stakeholders, including composers, performers, interaction designers, media artists and engineers.
Steering Audience Engagement During Audio-Visual Performance
The aim of this research was to establish a new style of AV performance that facilitated me in knowingly steering audience engagement. My interest in steering engagement stems from the intent I have with my performances; an intent to encourage audiences into considered thought about the topics I bring to my shows. As practice-based research, a series of performances formed its basis, with each adapted toward establishing a new style. I introduced audience conversations to my performances, doing so in real-time by harnessing the audience's second-screens. In this way, their smartphones facilitated spontaneous collaboration between the audience and I; in turn this gave me a way to steer them toward thinking about the themes behind my performances. By then bringing this style of performance to the context of live debate, a new paradigm emerged; one that challenges the audience to participate in shaping the emergent audio-visual event. I had to develop the capacity to monitor audience engagement, first offline with the `video-cued commentary' and then in real-time via two different `audience-commentary systems'. This may be of interest to anyone engaging in forms of audience analysis or viewer studies. How I developed second-screen systems may be of interest to designers of phone-network-based social-media commentary platforms. My effort toward simplifying how I generated audio-visual content and how I controlled it on-stage may make this research of interest to other digital-media performers and installation-designers.
Acousmatic and audiovisual listening in live performance
(In)Visible Sound, 2010
"This paper presents an investigation of live improvised performance practice, where the use of projected video from digital cameras is used to reveal information about an otherwise acousmatic performance. In this context, electroacoustic and amplified instrumental performers are hidden from view so that the audience experience the music in a predominantly acousmatic mode, but with scope for the performers to reveal selected visual information to the audience intermittently. This on-going project is initially concerned with the mechanisms of live acousmatic performance and the impact of controlling the video interface upon practice. Aesthetic issues linked to the control of live video by the musicians will be discussed, such as the implications of using software to selectively reveal details of instrumental or electroacoustic techniques to the audience as part of an improvised live performance. Where the video interface is enabled, the potential ambiguity of the interface will be discussed, for example when distortions of time are introduced to interrupt audiovisual synchronisation, or when video is used to deliberately confuse the identity of instrumental and electronic sound sources."
Gathering audence feedback on an audiovisual performance
2013
This paper will report on the use of video-cued commentary as a method of gath¬ering insightful audience feedback on an audiovisual performance. Through my current audiovisual performances, I seek to present perspectives on social themes. Hence, I hope to communicate with audiences on an intellectual level, yet in the past, I have been unable to tell whether audiences were engaging sensually, intellectually or otherwise. My research seeks to glean in what manner audiences engage with a perfor¬mance, ascertaining what elements of my performance may have triggered them to engage. I expect that in seeking answers to these questions, I will understand more about how audiovisual content, gesture and stage-setup can lead audi¬ences to engage intellectually. I have used post-performance audience surveys to gather subjective feed¬back. The analysis of these surveys revealed useful general impressions, yet feed¬back rarely revealed the impact of specific audiovisual events or moments. Seek¬ing feedback on specific events could isolate the impact I had on the audience making it impossible to replicate the same impact in future performances. In seeking to gather specific feedback, I came across the use of video-cued commentary, a method used to assess user-experience within interactive instal¬lations. I adapted this approach to the field of live audiovisuals, inspired by the writings of Sergei Eisenstein and adopting the listening modes suggested by Michel Chion. The design, implementation and analysis of a video-cued commentary will be part of this analysis together with alternative uses of the video-cued commentary for researchers and practitioners in other fields.
This paper presents a methodology for the study of audience perception of live performances, using a combined approach of post-hoc and real-time data. We conducted a study that queried audience enjoyment and their perception of error in digital musical instrument (DMI) performance. We collected quantitative and qualitative data from the participants via paper survey after each performance and at the end of the concert, and during the performances spectators were invited to indicate moments of enjoyment and incidences of error using a two-button mobile app interface. This produced 58 paired post-hoc and real-time data sets for analysis. We demonstrate that real-time indication of error does not translate to reported non-enjoyment and post-hoc and real-time data sets are not necessarily consistent for each participant. In conclusion we make the case for a combined approach to audience studies in live performance contexts.