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术语，用来形容80后出生的城市居民，他们伴随着数字设备长大。他们的特点是注意力持续时间短，学习速度快，获得新信息的速度快，对视觉的偏好超过了文本，眼睛和手的协调能力更强，非线性处理，以及多任务处理的能力。自那以后，普伦斯基的假说在全球学生参与度领域引发了大量研究，尤其是在大流行期间，这些数字原住民在家中上课。从20世纪70年代开始，艺术家们开始用中间人的存在来面对现场表演。这标志着媒介的诞生，数字技术被融入到剧院实践中。这场大流行进一步发展了这种关系，促使人们以新的方式去认识和看待问题。在吸引数字原住民进入日益增长的“体验经济”方面，中级影院提供了大量尚未开发的潜力。到目前为止，关于中间剧场和数字原住民之间的关系的书面或实践记录很少。在大流行后的数字化世界中，当戏剧制作人回到他们的创作空间时，他们需要认真审视是什么让他们的工作变得紧迫、相关、有意义、包容、可获得，最重要的是，不可模仿。数字原住民目前在全球形成了最大的新观众群体，并将很快取代剧院最大的利益相关者。如果戏剧制作人回到他们的实践中，而不考虑这种人口结构是如何运作和运作的，他们可能会完全失去他们，被其他更具创新性的媒体形式所取代。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的数字原住民的新的中间戏剧制作方法。每个项目都以戏剧性的焦点(活跃度、沉浸感或参与性潜力)为框架，旨在从一个地点将其物化为实体活动。以下问题是每个项目制作的基础：*数字原住民的哪些特征可以转化为戏剧体验的创造？*这些特征如何能够以一种可访问和有意义的方式将文本、空间、时间、身体和媒体拼凑在一起？媒介如何丰富作品？*当前的技术(包括观众带来的数字设备)如何支持、调解和超越戏剧体验？如何以新的方式利用这些设备和软件？这项研究的目标是开发工具，欢迎数字原生观众重返共享的物理空间，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有别于它们本身消费数字媒体和与数字媒体互动的方式。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、艺术界和高等教育机构之间新的长期合作机会。这些机会在一个变得越来越小的数字化世界中进一步加深了跨国和跨文化的理解。每个项目的采访、观察、过程、实际方法、成果、反馈和自我反思的数字档案将通过一个网站向公众提供。

"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.