My research is a collaboration between Theatr Genedlatehol Cymru and Aberystwyth University, funded by the European Social Fund and coordinated by the Knowledge Economy Skills Scholarship Scheme. It investigates the affect of new media technologies upon theatrical performance. My research has allowed me to confront an issue that needed addressing. What are the ways in which interactive and responsive media environments, developed in the visual arts, might be adapted to the context of theatrical performance?

The development of ubiquitous computing systems has altered the nature of our relationship with the world around us. The invasive yet invisible encroachment of pervasive technologies, such as the mobile phone and iPod, has caused the traditional demarcation between private and public spaces to erode.

Such ubiquitous technologies have been used in visual arts to create interactive and responsive environments. These projects increasingly seek to facilitate a different kind of engagement with their audience, by allowing them to affect the environment itself.


This paper explores how technologies that stimulate audiences have been carried across into the field of theatre and performance.

This paper highlights specific issues that have arisen in attempting to transfer technological devices from the visual arts to performance. It will explore the current methods and limitations of projects which attempt to involve audiences more directly in the creation and alteration of theatrical staging and projected imagery. It will also discuss current discourses surrounding possible implications of such work on the audience, especially concerning their shifting role in performance, and on the very definition of theatre itself.

I have just completed my MA in Making Performance at Edge Hill University, where I obtained a distinction grade for my thesis. As part of my MA Practice as Research I directed a "Cine-theatre" adaption of the cult horror film, Carnival of Souls for the Edinburgh Festival 2010. I have been experimenting with the concept of "Cine-theatre" since 2002 and have been chosen to present my work at the University of Reading, as part of this year's Journeys' Across Media conference. Previous to this I have managed a 300 seater Arts Centre. 

The use of new technologies in theatre, offer rich potential to reinvigorate the dialogue between the unconscious quality of cinema and the immediate consciousness of live performance. Piscator’s first mixed media production of Hoppla Wir Leben, some ninety years ago, allowed technologists and theatre practitioners to experiment with the difficulties of occupying the space between theatre and cinema. In fact, the wider debate regarding the relationship between art and technology has been played out since the western Industrial Revolution. Some practitioners such as 1960s actor Robert Blossom and current Stamford Professor Babak Ebrahimian have professed to have re-defined this space. 

This performance presentation examines what impact cinematic and theatrical pioneers have had on the landscape of theatre and its audience. It will re-invigorate the possibilities of a new aesthetic which, can neither be determined as theatre or film and will discuss the impact, which may occur to the spectator as a result. I will explore how my own “cine-theatre” enquiries have made discoveries in these areas. Through augmenting theatrical space, I will highlight the possibility for new technologies to offer ingenious possibilities, which extend the boundaries of our ancient art form providing a rich opportunity to fascinate new audiences. 

David Shearing is a performance artist and academic who works across art forms and has exhibited at various festivals in the UK and Internationally. He has recently worked as video artist for extended vocalist Yvon Bonenfant’s project Beacons (2009) developed at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Centre (EMPAC, New York) and will tour nationally across the UK Autumn 2011. 

BA in Performing Arts (University of Winchester – First Class), 
MA Performance Design and Practice (Central Saint Martin’s College of Art & Design) and is currently Current: PhD in Audience Immersion and Scenography (University of Leeds). 

www.davidshearing.com 

Helen Freshwater (2009) documents a shift in British theatre at the turn of the millennium towards audience participation and empowerment. Current trends in site-specific and ‘immersive’ theatre by performance companies and visual artists such as Punchdrunk, Shunt, Slung Low and Janet Cardiff combine new and intimate technologies which are redefining the Environmental Theatre debate outlined by Richard Schechner (1974, 1994). Often these performance practices offer ‘embodied theatrical experience’ Stephan Di Benedetto (2010) where the audience engage directly with technology, object and space – these events occasionally negate the need for live performers. This act raises significant question around the direct communicative exchange between scenographer and audience as co-author of experience. This paper questions in what was can scenography lead and manipulate audience experience? And to what extent can an audience become the authors of their own sensuous experience?

Using a practice-as-research project VOID/ROOM (2010) this paper presents and explores various concepts of authorship and audience engagement in the control and manipulation of space and in the construction of imaginative reflection. VOID/ROOM is a short 10 minute sound installation using a 12 channel multiple speaker sound system in which the audience wears headphone technology.