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

这项研究将为场景和档案实践领域带来重大的原创性贡献，为沉浸式剧场制作过程中使用的方法和过程提供系统的记录。沉浸式剧场日益结合虚拟现实、丰富的视听设计和特定地点的表演空间的复杂综合性质，推动了一个快速发展的创作创新期，使学术研究难以跟上。第一波的灵感来自于像Punchdrinder这样的公司在21世纪初在英国的流行，催生了大量的学术关注和关于观众互动的新理论(Alston(2013)，Machon(2013)，White(2012))。随着时间的推移，沉浸式这一术语已经成为任何涉及哪怕是少量观众代理的戏剧表演的不分青红皂白的代名词。这些批评人士认为，我们现在所说的沉浸式剧场实际上是一个不精确的总称，指的是传统(即海滨步行街和特定地点的剧场)和其他实验性数字形式的融合。马尔文·卡尔森认为，没有历史上的沉浸式戏剧；它完全是出于营销目的而合成的21世纪产品(2016)。这也受到了业内专业人士的质疑，他们拒绝将戏剧表演分为沉浸式和非沉浸式；在他们看来，任何足以将观众带到另一个时间和地点的作品都符合这一当代定义(Jarvis(2019)，Dixon(2015))。最后，它在美学上受到了批评家的挑战，他们认为主流沉浸式戏剧主要由资产阶级消费(Lehmann，2006，第118页)；因此，任何作品都不可避免地陷入传统的商业剥削模式，抵制真正的艺术表达(Ramos，Dunne-Howrie，Maravala&Simon，2020)。这种对沉浸式戏剧观众体验的批判性关注在很大程度上忽视了其制作过程中采用的创新和快速变化的做法，特别是数字技术，以及这些如何影响整个行业生产过程的方方面面。这项研究是及时的，因为它将扩大讨论范围，超越接受范围，包括对制作沉浸式工作所涉及的生产过程的密切分析，并就如何在这些快速变化的过程丢失之前捕获和保存这些过程提供战略。

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.