Liveness for Contemporary Audiences: Developing online-togetherness in metaverse theatre audiences (original) (raw)
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In every century, there are different apparatuses that are redefining and refining the notion of immersion. After experiencing panoramas, planetariums or even IMAX movies, we are now longing to see whether VR can really fulfil our expectations. We are ready to offer all our senses and to experience new situations and to be present somewhere else. But is the virtual reality's medium prepared for these expectations? Meanwhile the immersive theatre's genre is spreading and engaging the audience for couple of hours into their very peculiar environments. The aim of my research is to point out different features of live theatre that, when combined with or added to VR-experiences, can enhance the immersion and create more realistic illusions. My investigation is related to narratology and reception studies, and is based on recent findings related to VR. First I'm going to present through some examples how 360-degree fictional movies are exploring their specialties by transferring the narrative literally into the viewers head (e.g. Alteration by Jerome Blanquet, or Rhizomat VR by Mona el Gammal) as a way to capture the viewers empathy more. In immersive performances the audience is considered a participant with a given role. This way the narrative environment is constructed in such a way that allows the participants to unfold the story by directing their focus to carefully planned details. This does not make the participants the story's protagonist, but they can become the protagonist of the experience itself. They can have a variety of experiences that are directly addressing all of their senses creating more suspense. Based on different examples, I will point out various tactics that VR-movie creators can use to draft their own language and offer more inputs for their viewers. I will also point out how to create such environments for using the VR HMD that can dramatically be built into a viewing situation, without having the forced isolation feeling. My research is based on an audience survey made in June 2017 in Mannheim following a performance by SIGNA, on several interviews conducted with immersive theatre makers, and also on hermeneutical analysis of different VR creations. Virtual reality. 360-degree movie. Immersive theatre.
Acta Ludologica, 2023
Immersive theatre, a theatrical form emerging at the beginning of the 21st century, invites spectators to become immersed in interactive theatre performances. The use of the term immersive indicates a strong influence from digital media, particularly from virtual worlds (VWs). Immersive theatre and VWs appear to share characteristics. A systematic comparative approach tracing the presence of characteristics shared by immersive theatre and VWs (i.e., virtuality, worldliness, information intensity), among others, still unique to VWs (i.e., agency, ergodicity), reveals that immersive theatre has assimilated some VWs characteristics while still being in the process of negotiating others. The paradigm of pervasive games is brought into the conversation to claim immersive theatre as a partially successful case of theatre gamification, revising theatrical and dramatic conventions, towards what could be called a digitally and ludically inspired neo-dramatic. New intermedial forms of express...
The Changing Position of the Theatergoer in the Changing Space of Online Performances
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During the last year we all were banned to participate in our everyday life using online transmission, homework, homeschool and different digital tools. But with all this we also gained access to cultural or other practices that previously were not part in our everyday life. That resulted in a detailed spectrum of participation from the form of listening-observing to the different levels of giving feedback and taking control (for example putting questions to the other participants or to the crew, taking part in the discussion, pausing or leaving an event). This paper investigates the possibilities of agency given to the participants by the online theater. It starts from personal experiences, but ends in questions regarding the medial nature of this new transmission form: to what extent should digitally transmitted performances, shows be considered theater? And if they are not theater, what are they?
Skenè. Journal of Theatre and Drama Studies, 2021
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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The simultaneous presence of virtual and physical reality on a theatre scene is of problematic nature. In terms of empathy it is difficult for an attendance to identify with these 2 different dimensions of reality at the same time. This observation led us to conceive an expressive technological environment and a theatrical concept in which we could achieve a 'natural' symbiosis of the physical and the virtual: 'multimedia as prosthesis' This application of VR technology offers intuitive tools (for drawing and navigation, speaking,..) at a paralyzed, technology-dependant actor. In order to have the mimetic faculty of this man communicated to the audience we built a computer-cave on the theatre scene, so that he can share his virtual space with the spectators. This is an environment of which the parameters are generated and steered by the actor in real time.
Live theatre in the age of digital technology: ‘Digital habitus’ and the youth live theatre audience
This article applies Bourdieu’s notion of habitus to the results of a two-year qualitative study of high school students’ responses to live theatre. ‘Digital habitus’ sheds light upon the ways in which teenagers more accustomed to ‘networked publics’ (boyd and Marwick 2011) respond to live performance and provides a way to understand students’ embodiment of digital culture during these ‘uncertain times for audience research’ (Couldry 2014 p. 226) . Through the voices of student theatregoers the article proposes three findings that point to how learning to recognize, understand and negotiate the digital habitus is an important task for audience researchers, educators and theatre administrators keen to ‘build bridges’ (Hosenfeld 1999) between the ‘dispositions’ (Bourdieu, 1990) of the smartphone-toting teenager and the stage.
2024
Theatre has seen various crises and reshaped its presentation style throughout world history. Theatre has exhibited remarkable resilience and creativity in the face of these challenging circumstances. The Covid-19 pandemic represents a recent public health crisis for the theatre industry. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the theatre industry adapted by embracing virtual presentations, moving away from its conventional dependence on physical locations. This study examines theatre practices in various crises and explores how the Covid-19 pandemic redefined the concept of "liveness" in theatrical presentations. The research focuses on the intersection of theatre and public health crises. It discusses the survival and adaptation of the theatrical arts during pandemics.
Lancashire. This project aimed to test whether an online interactive experience could be created that in some way matches the quality of the physical and visceral, live experience that is at the heart of immersive work. The experiment would attempt to join two audience members together to experience a coherent, shared storyline. One physically present in the space of Sleep No More, one online, remotely on a laptop or other computer. This research is of benefit to the wider sector because at present there are several ways of digitally capturing live performances, but very few, if any, ways that audiences can digitally interact with the work. While there is an increasing audience appetite for two-way interaction with theatre, this is by-and-large limited to the live experience of presence. The audience need to be in the room in order to interact with the show. As the appetite for interactive and site-specific work grows, and various aspects of this work move into mainstream theatre, this research could provide significant evidence for a growing part of the sector that has a desire to connect to audiences not just in the room but across the web. So, the idea of a digitally expanded theatre experience is at stake in this work. Can we achieve more with digital than merely extending the size of the auditorium using a broadcast model? The research results are based on two studies.
Tweetre: What role can technology play in contemporary theatre?
2017
This article is a brief, individual review which illustrates some advances that digital technology can foster for theatre. Whether this can be seen as an encroachment or augmentation in this field, there are clear examples of significant opportunities for practitioners who follow the digital route as a means to increase theatrical participation. Concurrent to this, this article will demonstrate the validity of using the principles of game design to consider the potentials offered by digital theatre and indicate possible avenues for future research.