PrImmersive Theatre Process & Production: Developing a Capture Methodology for Archiving Digital Storytelling

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This research will lead to a significant original contribution to the field of scenography and archival practiceby providing a systematic documentation of the methods and processes utilised during the production ofimmersive theatre.The complex integrative nature of immersive theatre that increasingly combines virtual reality, rich audiovisual design and site-specific performance spaces has prompted a fast-moving period of creativeinnovation, making it difficult for academic research to keep up. The first wave, inspired by the popularity ofcompanies such as Punchdrunk in the UK at the start of the twenty-first century, spawned a raft of academicattention and new theories about audience interaction (Alston (2013), Machon (2013), White (2012)). Overtime the term immersive has come to be an indiscriminate metonym for any theatrical performance whichinvolves even a modicum of audience agency. These critics argue that what we now refer as immersivetheatre is in fact an imprecise umbrella term for a confluence of traditional (i.e., promenade and site-specifictheatre) and other experimental digital formats. Marvin Carlson suggests there is no historical immersivetheatre; it is entirely a synthetic product of the twenty-first century for marketing purposes (2016). It is alsocontested by industry professionals who reject the bifurcation of theatrical performance into immersive andnon-immersive; in their view, any production which sufficiently transports the audience into another time andplace meets this contemporary definition (Jarvis (2019), Dixon (2015)). Finally, it has been challengedaesthetically by critics who contend mainstream immersive theatre is predominantly consumed by thebourgeoisie (Lehmann, 2006, p118); any output is therefore inevitably trapped within conventional modes ofcommercial exploitation and resistant to genuine artistic expression (Ramos, Dunne-Howrie, Maravala &Simon, 2020).This critical focus on the audience experience of immersive theatre has largely ignored the innovative andrapidly changing practices employed in its production, specifically digital technologies and how these areimpacting all aspects of the production process across the industry. This research is timely because it willexpand discussions beyond reception to encompass a close analysis of the production processes involvedin the making of immersive work and offer strategies as to how these rapidly changing processes may becaptured and preserved before they are lost.