Immersion and the Spectator (original) (raw)
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Staging Spectators in Immersive Performances: Commit Yourself!
Staging Spectators in Immersive Performances: Commit Yourself! , 2019
At present, we are witnessing a significant transformation of established forms of spectatorship in theatre, performance art and beyond. In particular , immersive and participatory forms of theatre allow audiences and performers to interact in a shared performance space. Staging Spectators in Immersive Performances discusses forms and concepts of contemporary spectatorship and explores various modes of audience participation in theory as well as in practice. The volume also reflects on what new terms and methods must be developed in order to address the theoretical challenges of contemporary immersive performances. Split into three parts, Staging Spectators in Immersive Performances, respectively, focuses on various strategies for mobilising the audience, methodological questions for research on being a spectator in immersive and participatory forms of theatre, and thematising new modes of partaking and ways of spectating in contemporary art. Poignantly capturing experiences that can be viewed as manifestations of affective relationality in the strongest possible sense, this volume will appeal to students and researchers interested in fields such as Theatre and Performance Studies, Media Studies and Philosophy. Doris Kolesch is Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies and a co-director of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)-funded Collab
Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, 2014
With Immersive Theatres: Intimacy and Immediacy in Contemporary Performance, Josephine Machon has written a useful and very necessary book. It is the first monograph that is solely devoted to immersive theatre, a phenomenon of huge popularity, which has nonetheless given both critics and scholars a hard time to pin down and to conceptualise (Remshardt; White; White). Machon's book sets out to fill this lacuna. The study is divided into two parts, of which the first one provides definitional approaches to immersive theatre, traces its theatrical heritage and offers theoretical models for its understanding. The second part is a sourcebook of interviews with eleven leading practitioners in the field of immersive theatre. Right from the beginning, Machon acknowledges the diversity of performative practices that have been called immersive, ranging from small-scale one-onone performances to the epic worlds of Punchdrunk. Consequently, finding a binding and striking definition is impossible, but certain common characteristics can be identified (xvi). For Machon, the pivotal point of these is a multi-sensorial, physical experience that provides room for interaction: "[I]mmersive experiences in theatre combine the act of immersionbeing submerged in an alternative medium where all the senses are engaged and manipulated-with a deep involvement in the activity within that medium" (21-22). Immersive practices, for Machon, are a counter-movement against a virtual society that is characterised by social networks and second hand encounters. Immersive theatre offers real sensate experience through sensual stimulation (26). This approach is obviously highly problematic as it is laden with essentialist notions. However, she argues that all forms of immersive theatre are specifically designed to give thick, bodily experiences that speak to all the senses. The physical presence of the audience within the performance (she calls it praesence, seeking to engulf all the sensorial impressions) leads to a privileged experience that is stronger than conventional theatre and will last longer in one's body's memory (44). Immersion is then defined by three categories: absorption (fully engaged in terms of imagination and concentration), transportation (a world that is both a mindspace like in a video game but also a real physical space), and total immersion (praesence) (62-63). Immersive theatre, according to Machon, can be used as
Repossessing Spectatorship in Immersive Theatre and Virtual Reality
2020
Repossessing Spectatorship in Immersive Theatre and Virtual Reality proposes that material constructions borne by the ambitions of “immersion” do not fulfill their intended purpose: total passage to the reality of the performance. These materially constructed doorframes are not fully functional portals, as they ultimately have no bearing on the impassable barrier between our actuality and the virtual reality of a performance. Due to that barrier, encounters with the reality of a performance are still necessarily virtual; the spectator’s perception must traverse the performance through a sort of astral projection, as a dis/embodied ghost still tethered to corporeality and ultimately returning to it. Although these doorframes reveal and conceal no more than the actuality that already haunts spectators, these constructions produce exciting new theatre practices. Through a combination of the author’s embodied research, interviews with immersive theatre practitioners, and performance theory related to immersion, embodiment, and liveness, Repossessing Spectatorship in Immersive Theatre and Virtual Reality explores two contemporary case studies of immersive theatre that model the virtual reality headset as a visible, tangible example of one such “doorframe.” These case studies both integrate the virtual reality headset for the sake of immersion: 1. Tequila Works’s The Invisible Hours, one title in an expressly immersive and theatrical genre of virtual reality (VR) gaming, and 2. The University of Iowa’s Elevator #7, a mixed-reality production that adds an additional layer of tangible stimuli through live theatre, in order to supplement the immersive experience of wearing the headset. This thesis articulates its larger, abstract argument about spectatorship by tracing these case studies’ applications of the VR headset. Overall, Repossessing Spectatorship in Immersive Theatre and Virtual Reality encourages a reframing of the idea of immersion, away from total passage and toward a conscious repossession of the corporeal body in virtual visitation with a performance.
Watching, Attending, Sense-making: Spectatorship in Immersive Theatres
Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, 2016
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Close Encounters in Enclosed Spaces: Theatre from a Spectator's Perspective
2012
Provided by ScholarBank@NUS v view, is not how we read the images we see and the meaning we make of them but about how we construct our reality with the images around us. The proliferation of new media technologies and the time-space compression have resulted in a rethinking of the role of the spectator as well as theatre performance in the wider visual culture. The blurring of the lines between various genres of performance and the widening of the discursive spaces where we encounter art and performance, has repositioned the spectator in the context of theatre performance. Post dramatic theatre and contemporary art practices specifically address elements of time and space, presence and absence, fiction and reality, with a focus on the postmodern spectator. It is in the broad context of these developments and my specific relationship with place and theatre itself that I situate my spectatorial experience. I analyse my experience of watching two performances-The Blue Mug (2010) and Fear of Writing (2011)-to provide insights into the processes that underlie the negotiation, confrontation and reconstitution that takes place in close encounters in enclosed spaces.
What do Audiences Do? Negotiating the Possible Worlds of Participatory Theatre
Questions around what audiences do are becoming ever more complex as innovative modes of participation are developed in contemporary immersive, interactive and intermedial theatre. Drawing on examples from Uninvited Guests, Void Projects, Punchdrunk, Blast Theory and other contemporary theatre practitioners , this article suggests that new models are needed in order to reason about the experience of the contemporary theatre audience. It proposes that the philosophical framework of Possible Worlds Theory, as used by digital theorists to elucidate the reader's experience of hypertext fiction, can also provide tools and a language which recognise and validate the complexities of spectatorial practices in participatory theatre. The article uses digital theory and several applications of Possible Worlds Theory to reveal some implications of active spectating as it explores what it means to manoeuvre between successive states of immersion and interaction through an aesthetic process.
Intermediality as an Aesthetic of Immersive Theatre
2017
Immersive theatre is an exciting and dynamic art form which emerged as a popular new theatre practice in 1980s, stemming from the combination of installation art, physical and visual theatre practices (Machon, 2013: xv). The research for this dissertation is twofold. Secondary research is in the form of a comprehensive literature review which analyses previous writing and journals published on intermediality and immersive theatre. Primary research came from an online survey held from July to August of 2017 to discover the attitudes towards the art form. The results from these studies are discussed and summarised. This dissertation questions how contemporary theatre companies create dynamic and stimulating performance works for today’s audiences. It aims to discover how many people attend performances such as those known as ‘immersive’ (to completely surround or fully involve an audience) or ‘site-specific’ (performance work created specifically for a space or place). It will address the issues of intermediality and immersive performance art and how soundscapes can be created to fully involve audiences in work which is relevant to the political and cultural climate of the twenty-first century. The dissertation will reference the work of Living Structures, Smoosh & Smoosh and Heiner Goebbels with a heavy emphasis on exploring the music used within selected pieces of work. This dissertation will argue that there is significance for an immersive music theatre synthesis which is reflected through ticket sales and performances produced in Britain. It will reflect upon how music theatre art can become a catalyst for opening accessibility to work previously viewed as ‘high art’. The area of study spans the last two centuries. It finds that we are in danger of losing sight of seeing immersive theatre technique as ‘art’ but instead they are becoming fully sellable products which are more like attractions than reasons to tell a story. We may also have to rely on big name brands to help support our work as artists as immersive theatre may or may not be a popular form of theatre. The main body of this dissertation is contained in chapter five where there is a discussion how intermediality is used within immersive theatre and to what extent. The chapter also discusses whether intermediality could be viewed as an aesthetic of immersive (music) theatre.
The expansion of theatrical space and the role of the spectator
One of the theatre and performance conventions that has been challenged by the application of technology is that of space. Theatrical space has been “expanded” through the application of technology and its artefacts. However, it is not really clear what is meant by “expansion”, as it means different things according to different authors and these divergent meanings often lead to misunderstandings. In this article, I will demonstrate the need for a more nuanced understanding of what the expansion of theatrical space means and its impact on the concept of spectatorship. The analysis will be based on three distinct forms of digital performance where spatial expansion has been an issue; these are three categories that also mark the heterogeneity and dynamism of the convergence of performance and technology: multimedia performance, telematic performance and pervasive performance. Through an analysis of specific cases across the categories, I aim to show how the expansion of space implies a more participatory stance in the role of the spectator.