Reimagining Liveness, Immersion, and Participation in a Post-pandemic Theatre for Generation Z Audiences

“数字原住民”是教育家马克·普伦斯基创造的一个词，用来形容80后在数字设备的陪伴下长大的城市居民。他们的特点是注意力持续时间短，学习速度快，快速获取新信息，喜欢视觉而不是文字，高度的手眼协调，非线性处理和多任务处理能力。普伦斯基的假设引发了全球学生参与领域的大量研究，尤其是在疫情期间，这些数字原住民在家上课。自20世纪70年代以来，艺术家们开始以一种中介的存在来面对现场表演。这标志着中间性的起源，数字技术被纳入戏剧实践。大流行进一步发展了这种关系，催生了新的制造和观察方式。中间剧场在吸引数字原生代进入不断增长的“体验经济”方面提供了大量未开发的潜力。到目前为止，关于中间戏剧和数字原生代之间关系的书面或实践记录很少。在大流行后的数字化世界中，戏剧制作人回到自己的创作空间时，他们需要认真审视是什么让他们的作品具有紧迫性、相关性、意义、包容性、可及性，最重要的是，具有不可模仿性。数字原生代目前构成了全球最大的新观众群体，并将很快取代剧院最大的利益相关者。如果戏剧制作人不考虑这一人群的功能和运作方式就回到他们的实践中，他们就有可能完全失去他们，让位于其他更具创新性的媒体形式。通过三个连续的创意项目，本研究旨在探索专门针对大流行后数字原生代的新的中间戏剧制作方法。每个项目都有一个戏剧性的焦点（活力、沉浸感或参与潜力），旨在从一个地点实现一个物理事件。以下问题是每个项目制作的基础：*数字原生代的特点是什么，可以转化为戏剧体验的创作？*这些特征如何以一种易于理解和有意义的方式将文本、空间、时间、身体和媒体拼凑在一起？中间性如何丰富作品？*当前的技术（包括观众随身携带的数字设备）如何支持、调解和超越戏剧体验？如何以新颖的方式利用这些设备和软件？这项研究的目标是开发工具，欢迎数字原生受众回到共享的物理空间，同时通过新的方式保持他们的活跃、参与和参与。这些新体验的策划最终必须与他们消费和与数字媒体互动的方式截然不同。这项研究汇集了来自欧洲和亚洲的艺术家，并促进了戏剧公司、艺术社区和高等教育机构之间新的长期合作机会。这些机会进一步促进了在数字化世界中越来越小的跨国和跨文化理解。每个项目的采访、观察、过程、实践方法、制作、反馈和自我反思的数字档案将通过网站向公众开放。

"Digital natives" is a term coined by educationist Marc Prensky to describe urban dwellers born after the 80s who grew up with digital devices. They are characterized by short attention spans, quick learning speeds, fast access to new information, a penchant for the visual than textual, heightened eye-hand coordination, nonlinear processing, and the ability to multitask. Prensky's hypothesis has since sparked much research in the field of student engagement across the globe, more so during the pandemic when these digital natives attended classes from their homes. Since the 1970s, artists began to confront live performances with a mediated presence. This marked the genesis of intermediality, where digital technology is incorporated into theatre practices. The pandemic has evolved this relationship further, prompting new ways of making and seeing. Intermedial theatre offers plenty of untapped potential in attracting digital natives to a growing "experience economy." Little has been documented so far, in writing or practice, on the relationship between intermedial theatre and digital natives. As theatre-makersreturn to their creative spaces in a digitized post-pandemic world, they need to take a hard look at what makes their work urgent, relevant, meaningful, inclusive, accessible, and most importantly, inimitable. Digital natives currently form the largest cohort of new audiences across the globe and will soon take the place of theatre's biggest stakeholders. If theatre-makers returned to their practice without considering how this demographic functions and operates, they risk losing them entirely to other more innovative forms of media.Through three sequential creative projects, this research intends to explore new intermedial theatre-making approaches targeted specifically at post-pandemic digital natives. Each project is framed by a theatrical focus (liveness, immersiveness, or participatory potential) and aims to materialize into a physical event from one location. The following questions ground the production of each project: *What are characteristics of digital natives that can be translated into the creation of a theatrical experience? * How can these characteristics inform the piecing together of text, space, time, bodies, and media in a manner that is accessible and meaningful? How does intermediality enrich the work? * How do current technologies (including digital devices brought along by audiences) support, mediate, and transcend the theatrical experience? How can these devices and software be utilized in novel ways?The goal of this research is to develop tools to welcome digital native audiences back into shared physical spaces while keeping them active, engaged, and involved through new means. The curation of these new experiences must ultimately be distinct from the way they consume and interact with digital media on its own. This research brings together artists from Europe and Asia and fosters new long-term collaborative opportunities between theatre companies, arts communities, and institutes of higher education. These opportunities further transnational and intercultural understanding in a digitized world that is getting smaller. A digital archive of interviews, observations, processes, practical approaches, productions, feedback, and self-reflections from each project will be made available to the public via a website.