Technology as a Bridge to Audience Participation? - Christie Carson

Christie Carson is a CETL Liaison Officer.
She has been charged with creating concrete relationships with four specific CETLs that address the ways in which students can engage with creative practice. These CETLs deal directly with the complex question of how students can learn creative and practical skills alongside their academic study. She has also been asked to develop a working method of collaboration that might be extended to other CETLs that are working in areas that are more loosely connected to the English community.

Christie Carson's main area of research interest is the application of digital technology to teaching and research in the field of dramatic performance history. She has created a number of groundbreaking projects in this area working with Cambridge University Press, the Performing Arts Data Service, the English Subject Centre, the British Library and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her interests focus on the way in which contemporary performance history can be both documented and studied in new ways using digital technology. Dr Carson is also very interested in incorporating the work of creative practitioners both in the documentation and the teaching processes.

New theatrical spectrum
Online technology has made it possible for audience relationships to be reinvented and reputations to be redrawn across the theatrical spectrum. But is this what has actually taken place in the online world or are traditional priorities and prejudices slowly being re-established?

Digital technology and the internet allow for a democratisation of the producer/audience member relationship, and increasingly, it is possible to think of a two-way form of communication which extends beyond polite applause within the theatre building.

The Three Projects
The smallest of theatre companies can now have an international presence but is the theatre world taking proper advantage of the opportunities that are available?

The Stagework project involves the National Theatre, the Bristol Old Vic Theatre and the Birmingham Repertory Theater
the Exploring Shakespeare project produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company
the 'Adopt an Actor' Scheme run by Shakespeare's Glove Theatre.

The Author will consider the extent to which a new kind of audience involvement is created and the implications of these new levels of access.
Above all, she will look at the ways in which these theatres are redefining their relationships with their audiences through digital technology and redefining their public images.

She will also consider how effective the approach taken might be in developing a new generation of theatre goers and in creating an engaged debate about the role of the theatre in the twenty-first century

3 Factors to consider
Before we go through the text I wanna show you some factors to consider during the reading.

Funding factor: There is a marked difference between the approach taken to audience involvement by Shakespeare's Globe Theatre without government sponsorship and the approach taken by the subsidised theatres.

While Shakespeare's Glove Theatre has taken a spontaneous and inventive approach to involving additional audiences through their Education Department, the National Theatre, the Bristol Old Vic Theatre and the Birmingham Repertory Theater and the Royal Sahkespeare Company have approached the new technology in a much more traditional way.

Method factor
The funded institutional theatres are working ever more closely with the governmental structures for education, packaging an experience of theatrical creation which fits into a highly prescribed format. As a result, while an exciting which fits into a highly prescribed theatre practitioners is being created through the two projects described, the results are descriptive of past activity rather than engaging new audiences in current and developing activity.

Ethic factor
What is the role of the theatre in our society in the twenty-first century? To reinvigorate the theatre as a centre of public debate is not the goal of the theatres in this century?

Esploring Shakespeare: http://www.rsc.org.uk/learning/hamletandmacbeth/
Sahkespeare's Globe Education: http://www.shakespeares-globe.org/navigation/frameset.htm
The 'Adop an Actor' programme: http://www.shakespeares-globe.org/navigation/frameset.htm

Conclusion
The three projects described illustrate very interesting patterns in funding and in the development of educational materials, as well as the attitudes of the theatre companies involved towards the development of new audiences.
The subsidised theatres have been drawn into the government's drive towards standardisation of educational provision through funding initiatives raises some awkward questions about the role of these theatres in our society.

The Stagework project and the Exploring Shakespear project present educational materials that document in detail the creative process of individual productions. This material is freely available to the public as well as a student audience.
While this is a worthy approach there is no denying the fact that since these projects present unprecedented access to the work of these companies they have the potential to develop a vision of that work in the popular imagination.

Both the national Theatre an d the RSC have introduced a range of live events that draw a general audience into a variety of activities and debates; however, these events continue to centre on the gathering of individuals at their respective theatres.
For example, the National Theatre's summer programme of riverside events entitled 'Watch This Space' includes an enormous array of free outdoor performaaces, while exceptionally inclusive, relies on the audience member's ability to come to London. Similarly the RSC has hosted a number of events that have been designed to involve the public, including an enormous celebration of Shakespeare's birthday; however, these events assume a presence in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Adopt an Actor
Only the Globe Theatre's 'Adopt an Actor" programme speaks direct to that audience in an open-ended way in real time.

The work of the subsidised theatres has already been presented in other forms in other places. The full capabilities of the Internet to involve an audience who are geographically spread across the UK in the ongoing work of these theatres have not been expoited.

The subsideised theatres are being asked to present a model of exemplary British theatre craft rather than providing a centre of social and cultural engagement.

The relationships created through the Globe Theatre programme present a more fundamental change to theatrical audience interaction by developing a two-way form of communication directly with students.

The Globe's online work shows how straightforward it can be to engage an audience in the creative process an also in a direct discussion about the contemporary relevance of this theatre's work. The subsideised theatres continue to pursue their historicao position as preservers of cultural quality. Tax funding is being used more to instil conservative approaches to theatre than to engage a wide and varied local audience.

Author’s Suggestion
She suggested a method of multiple communications which is taken by Live 8 as a very successful example
The new approach of the “Adopt an Actor” project has forced considerable changes on the other funded theatres in terms of repertoire, ticket pricing and audience involvement in a project that is larger than the individual performance.


project Stagework Exploring Shakespeare “Adopt an Actor”
Institutes the National Theatre, the Bristol Old Vic Theatre and the Birmingham Repertory Theater the Royal Shakespeare Company Shakespeare's Glove Theatre
Funding Subsidized
Government’s drive towards standardisation of educational provision but how about the role of these theatres in our society Non-subsidized
attitudes present educational materials that document in detail the creative process of individual productions.
unprecedented access to the work; the potential to develop a vision of that work in the popular imagination
to center on the gathering of individuals at their respective theatre
Example: Summer programme of riverside events speaks direct to that audience in an open-ended way in real time.
Involvement of a geographical wide range of audience

Addenda, Phenomenology, Embodiment; Cyborgs and Disability Performance - Petra Kuppers

Intelligence, Interaction, Reaction, and Performance - Susan Broadhurst

Body Waves Sound Waves: Optik Live Sound and Performance - Barry Edwards and Ben Jarlett

The author introduces us two ways of making performance of the performance group OPTIK; the first circle performance developed over the period 1981-1986 were highly structured and no part of it was ever improvised. But the second began 1991 and were created making extensive use of improvisation.

The first approach could be described as working with blocks of performance material, the second cycle worked with wave-like transitions and emergent movements of event and action. Rather than through pre-determine long passages of performance action are the performances built through very small moment by moment actions and relied on the decision making processes of each performer in the work itself to create the final sequence. Without a rigid pre-determined resolution can the movement stand out as movement, the sound as sound, audible, visible, excessive, and the performers as presentators but as creative artists.

The second cycle practice is based on the dynamics of the human body in space and time. It is inside this framework that the sound artist operates, whether acoustic or electronic. The sound artist also works as a performer along with the others, following the same creative decision-making process – not ‘bolting on’ pre-determined sound in a separate way. Part of the pleasure of live performance lies in the way that the performers are drawing attention to themselves, in that space in that moment. Through this very human act the performer is both unique and connected to the watchers in some way, because he is not playing a role but making a role in the performance.

The similar case about creativity from spontaneity and improvisation can be found in Jazz or in Jackson Pollock’s work. Jazz improvisation is the process of spontaneously creating fresh melodies over the continuously repeating cycle of chord changes of a tune. And Pollock was not interested in representation or interpretation of nature but in the creative, unconscious movement of human.

Gretchen Schiller: Kinaesthetic Traces Across Material Forms: Stretching the Screen's Stage

Trajets (2000) is an installation inspired by dance and visual choreography. Twelve motorised screens move slowly in response to the paths taken by the visitors through the space. Video imagery projected onto the screens is of moving bodies and kinaesthetic patterns. The installation is a kinetic, enveloping, responsive environment.
In the ground of trajets we can find two different research on kinetic movement: the first one is Fullers body screenography that uses body as a moving screen to create fantasy(here body itself disappears) and the second one is Mareys movement mapping that investigate body movements to figure out kinetic methode of our body. Through these artistic and scientific scope of movement perception and transformation is the screen stage stretching.

Trajets reduces the gap between action and representation. The screen is not only a projection surface, but also a dynamic participant in the screenography, with video and force-based reactions that move in relationship to the visitor in real-time. The screens in trajets do not separate the subject of the visitor's movement experience from its representation, but instead seek to develop a participatory dynamic which continuously maps and renders present movement perception between the participant and the given feedback experience. The visitor's body in trajets has the opportunity to experience its own inner-felt movements' kinaesthesia, a sense of empathy for other participant's movements and/or physical connection to the images. This physical internal reception of the public is described by visual and cultural critic Marks as haptic cinema a sort of visceral chiasmus of perception and moving images.

“haptic visuality” is a visuality that functions like the sense of touch by triggering physical memories of smell, touch, and taste—to explain the newfound ways in which intercultural cinema engages the viewer bodily to convey cultural experience and memory.

Mark Coniglio: Materials vs Content in Digitally Mediated Performance

Mark Coniglio, the author of this text, tries to divide digitally mediated performance in two according to their methodology of the presentation. The first one is ‘material driven’ like “Apparitions” and the second ‘content driven’ like ‘16 (R)evolution’. Of course there are different ways and purposes to use imaginary in the performance. In Apparitions, the visuals stay within a clearly defined realm throughout the course of the piece, and these visuals are visible throughout almost the entire work and the materiality, the exhaustively explore the attributes of all materials, is the subject of the peace. But the 16 Revolutions, on the other hand, presents a far more varied palette of visual imagery that is present in several sections, but is, significantly, absent in others. In the 16 (R)evolution, the visual imagery itself is not the subject but a method to emphasis the narrative of the piece.

Some characteristics of the both side are listed bellow.

Material driven (Apparition)
Based on Reality
Traditional in art making, exhaustively explore the attributes of all materials
Abstraction
Dance (contemporary – without narrative & in abstract sense)
Exploring the materials is the subject of the work

Content driven (16 Revolutions)
Based on illusion
Narrative oriented
Theater (by more traditional literary interpretation)
Use materials to suggest or provide context
An idea implies narrative
Someone is telling a story

Saira Virous: Game Choreography in Multiplayer Online Performance Spaces - Hohannes Birringer

2. Truth-Seeker's Allowance: Digitising Artaud - Steven Dixon

The Chameleons Group is established in 1994 and has toured internationally with innovative 'film-theatre' productions where live actors work in front of large video screens, interacting with film characters and their own recorded 'doubles', and appear to move from the stage to the screen space. The company has produced two award-winning CD-ROMs analysing their work, and has also created high-tech interactive performances for the internet.

The separate ontologies of film and theatre
Audience orientations when experiencing the two forms are quite different since theatre has an inherent falsity acknowledged by all - 'dramatic illusion is nver.. the illusion of reality; it is always imaginative illusion whereas film purports to truth.

The author described the darker aspects of Artaudian theater containing elements such as eroticism, cruelty, the taste for blood, obsession with the horrible, dissolution of moral values, social hypocrisy, lies, false witness, sadism, perversity. There are much of comedy factor in the play of the Chameleons 4.
Humour serves as one of the most direct routes to audience response. Through humor becomes the audience more engaged and drawn to the scene.
Artaud propounds radical theories on the disruptive and transformative potential of what he calls ‘the power of physical and anarchic dissociation in laughter’

The femme fatale accuses the devil for inappropriately staring at her breasts..
As he protests his innocence, she walks around him on the stage shouting angrily, and finally kneels down in front of him with her back to the audience. Her movements are mirrored in a reverse on the screen and mid-shot of her face and torso are facing the audience. ‘Is that what you want to see’, she says as she simultaneously pulls down the front of her dress on the stage, where wee see her back and her breast on the screen...,

Bodies without Bodies - Susan Melrose

I'll write a summary of this chapter after reading it again.

The chapter 11...

the chapter 11 would be my prefered one. But if it would not be available, then I'll take the chapter 2 or 5.