An interactive exhibition about theatre, technology and special effects, commissioned by the Wils... more An interactive exhibition about theatre, technology and special effects, commissioned by the Wilson Gallery, Cheltenham.
This thesis demonstrates how the dynamics of hypertext fiction can inform an understanding of spe... more This thesis demonstrates how the dynamics of hypertext fiction can inform an understanding of spectatorial practices provoked by contemporary performance and installation work. It develops the notion of the ‘hypertextual experience’ to encapsulate the particular qualities of active user engagement instigated by the unstable aesthetic environments common to digital and non-digital artworks. The significance and application of this term will be refined through an examination of different works in each of the study’s six chapters. Those discussed are as follows: Performances: Susurrus, by David Leddy; Love Letters Straight from the Heart and Make Better Please, by Uninvited Guests; The Waves, by Katie Mitchell; House/ Lights and Route 1 & 9, by the Wooster Group; Two Undiscovered Amerindians Discover the West, by Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gomez-Pena. Digital works: Afternoon (1987) by Michael Joyce; Victory Garden (1992) by Stuart Moulthrop; TOC by Steve Tomasula; The Princess Murderer ...
Elizabeth Swift was Director and Librettist of The Two Sided Boy PART 2 in a scratch night for ne... more Elizabeth Swift was Director and Librettist of The Two Sided Boy PART 2 in a scratch night for new opera, hosted and curated by Second Movement (performance duration 7 mins 4 secs) https://secondmovement.org.uk/
Communicating science can be challenging at any educational level. We used informal and experient... more Communicating science can be challenging at any educational level. We used informal and experiential learning to engage groups of potential University applicants in one project that involved staging a play in one of the teaching laboratories at the University of Worcester whilst a second project designed a play in house and took this to schools. In the first project the plot centred on stem cell research. School pupils and students from FE Colleges were offered complementary sessions including a lecture exploring the science behind stem cell research, a discussion on ethical aspects involved and a practical using university facilities. We ascertained attitudes to Higher Education in the students participating before and after the event. We found an enhanced view of the science and a highly significant change in attitude to attending University for students taking vocational subjects at FE level. The second project was aimed at exploring attitudes to ethics and animal welfare among a...
Performance and Computer Science: (Re)defining the role of the audience. From passive spectator t... more Performance and Computer Science: (Re)defining the role of the audience. From passive spectator to active participant. The beginning of virtual community/the end of physical participation
International Journal of Performance Arts & Digital Media, 2010
ABSTRACT Traditions of authoring and reception have been challenged by the advent of digital inte... more ABSTRACT Traditions of authoring and reception have been challenged by the advent of digital interactivity, which has put into process a major re-envisioning of the paradigms surrounding artistic production and reception. This article explores how the culture of virtual worlds like Second Life is changing the way in which audiences relate to narrative. It suggests that different modes of collaborative interaction, familiar from experiential performance and other radical art practices, can elucidate the interactive interplay between controlling agents that characterize digital environments. The focus of the article is a project being developed in Second Life by architect Peter Ireland and writer/theatre director Elizabeth Swift, who, working as ‘Void’, have a twenty-year history of creating installation and performance projects which engage with digital media. ‘The Void Library’ (2009) uses Second Life to create an immersive experiential narrative work based around ideas from Jorge Luis Borges’ short story, ‘The Library of Babel’ (1941).
The way we tell stories shapes what we are: it articulates the way we position ourselves in relat... more The way we tell stories shapes what we are: it articulates the way we position ourselves in relation to the world. This article explores how immersive practices, as used in virtual reality and intermedial performance, provoke novel dynamics between artist and audience that no longer fit within Western traditions of aesthetic exchange and furthermore challenge our understanding of narrative production and reception. It proposes that new ways of reasoning are needed to allow audience agency and the evolving role of the artist to be explored more fully than is currently possible in mainstream theatre scholarship. One source that can provide a model for considering the dynamics between audience and performer in immersive performance is the Indigenous story systems of Australia. There is a significant synergy between the structure and operation of First Nation songlines and contemporary immersive performance. This is explored with reference to the work of contemporary anthropologists and...
All the world's a stage, said Jaques in Shakespeare's pastoral comedy, As You Like It , but the h... more All the world's a stage, said Jaques in Shakespeare's pastoral comedy, As You Like It , but the history of world literature tells a different story. Vast and ancient civilisations have been systematically excluded from records of stories told within our dominant literary tradition, which has focussed, rather, on narratives serving to define a particular view of aesthetic production and reception. 'World literature' excludes narratives which do not follow systematic rules-rules so embedded in tradition that we no longer notice them. The digital age, however, has thrown up new challenges for literature, concerning the relationship between author and reader. Increasingly, established modes of literature and drama are not fit for purpose in a world where immediacy and interactivity are valued above hierarchical storytelling. This paper argues that, in learning to understand how narratives might operate in a digital age, there is much to be learned from storytelling cultures that pre-date 'world literature'. It explores ancient narrative traditions from Indigenous Australia, North America and France, and explains how they can model certain kinds of immersive and interactive practices that are increasingly familiar in our digital age. It interrogates current storytelling practices that incorporate virtual reality and digital interactivity, and argues that the novel modes of engagement they provoke demonstrate the evolving relationship between artistic production and reception. The research draws on studies undertaken by academics from Indigenous cultures as well as incorporating new work from digital researchers and cognitive scientists.
All the world's a stage, said Jaques in Shakespeare's pastoral comedy, As You Like It , but the h... more All the world's a stage, said Jaques in Shakespeare's pastoral comedy, As You Like It , but the history of world literature tells a different story. Vast and ancient civilisations have been systematically excluded from records of stories told within our dominant literary tradition, which has focussed, rather, on narratives serving to define a particular view of aesthetic production and reception. 'World literature' excludes narratives which do not follow systematic rules-rules so embedded in tradition that we no longer notice them. The digital age, however, has thrown up new challenges for literature, concerning the relationship between author and reader. Increasingly, established modes of literature and drama are not fit for purpose in a world where immediacy and interactivity are valued above hierarchical storytelling. This paper argues that, in learning to understand how narratives might operate in a digital age, there is much to be learned from storytelling cultures that pre-date 'world literature'. It explores ancient narrative traditions from Indigenous Australia, North America and France, and explains how they can model certain kinds of immersive and interactive practices that are increasingly familiar in our digital age. It interrogates current storytelling practices that incorporate virtual reality and digital interactivity, and argues that the novel modes of engagement they provoke demonstrate the evolving relationship between artistic production and reception. The research draws on studies undertaken by academics from Indigenous cultures as well as incorporating new work from digital researchers and cognitive scientists.
International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, Sep 18, 2012
The following section, ‘Mixed-Media Performance Exercises for the Classroom’, is an unprecedented... more The following section, ‘Mixed-Media Performance Exercises for the Classroom’, is an unprecedented one-off section for IJPADM, which we intend as a practical handbook or user’s guide for scholars, artists and students interested in exploring media in the classroom. As co-editors of this special issue, Elise and Jen were fortunate to be working with Linsey Bostwick, a long-time creative/producing collaborator with Big Art Group and many other New York performance groups, who assisted in curating and setting up this special section. Because our aim for this section was to appeal to a range of ‘users’, and because we are working across different systems in the United States and the United Kingdom, we have deliberately included a diverse set of exercises that might be used in the classroom, in a workshop scenario and/or in art-making practices. While the exercises included here are largely aimed at university-level students, we feel that they are flexible and open enough to be adapted to...
International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, 2012
The following section, ‘Mixed-Media Performance Exercises for the Classroom’, is an unprecedented... more The following section, ‘Mixed-Media Performance Exercises for the Classroom’, is an unprecedented one-off section for IJPADM, which we intend as a practical handbook or user’s guide for scholars, artists and students interested in exploring media in the classroom. As co-editors of this special issue, Elise and Jen were fortunate to be working with Linsey Bostwick, a long-time creative/producing collaborator with Big Art Group and many other New York performance groups, who assisted in curating and setting up this special section. Because our aim for this section was to appeal to a range of ‘users’, and because we are working across different systems in the United States and the United Kingdom, we have deliberately included a diverse set of exercises that might be used in the classroom, in a workshop scenario and/or in art-making practices. While the exercises included here are largely aimed at university-level students, we feel that they are flexible and open enough to be adapted to...
An interactive exhibition about theatre, technology and special effects, commissioned by the Wils... more An interactive exhibition about theatre, technology and special effects, commissioned by the Wilson Gallery, Cheltenham.
This thesis demonstrates how the dynamics of hypertext fiction can inform an understanding of spe... more This thesis demonstrates how the dynamics of hypertext fiction can inform an understanding of spectatorial practices provoked by contemporary performance and installation work. It develops the notion of the ‘hypertextual experience’ to encapsulate the particular qualities of active user engagement instigated by the unstable aesthetic environments common to digital and non-digital artworks. The significance and application of this term will be refined through an examination of different works in each of the study’s six chapters. Those discussed are as follows: Performances: Susurrus, by David Leddy; Love Letters Straight from the Heart and Make Better Please, by Uninvited Guests; The Waves, by Katie Mitchell; House/ Lights and Route 1 & 9, by the Wooster Group; Two Undiscovered Amerindians Discover the West, by Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gomez-Pena. Digital works: Afternoon (1987) by Michael Joyce; Victory Garden (1992) by Stuart Moulthrop; TOC by Steve Tomasula; The Princess Murderer ...
Elizabeth Swift was Director and Librettist of The Two Sided Boy PART 2 in a scratch night for ne... more Elizabeth Swift was Director and Librettist of The Two Sided Boy PART 2 in a scratch night for new opera, hosted and curated by Second Movement (performance duration 7 mins 4 secs) https://secondmovement.org.uk/
Communicating science can be challenging at any educational level. We used informal and experient... more Communicating science can be challenging at any educational level. We used informal and experiential learning to engage groups of potential University applicants in one project that involved staging a play in one of the teaching laboratories at the University of Worcester whilst a second project designed a play in house and took this to schools. In the first project the plot centred on stem cell research. School pupils and students from FE Colleges were offered complementary sessions including a lecture exploring the science behind stem cell research, a discussion on ethical aspects involved and a practical using university facilities. We ascertained attitudes to Higher Education in the students participating before and after the event. We found an enhanced view of the science and a highly significant change in attitude to attending University for students taking vocational subjects at FE level. The second project was aimed at exploring attitudes to ethics and animal welfare among a...
Performance and Computer Science: (Re)defining the role of the audience. From passive spectator t... more Performance and Computer Science: (Re)defining the role of the audience. From passive spectator to active participant. The beginning of virtual community/the end of physical participation
International Journal of Performance Arts & Digital Media, 2010
ABSTRACT Traditions of authoring and reception have been challenged by the advent of digital inte... more ABSTRACT Traditions of authoring and reception have been challenged by the advent of digital interactivity, which has put into process a major re-envisioning of the paradigms surrounding artistic production and reception. This article explores how the culture of virtual worlds like Second Life is changing the way in which audiences relate to narrative. It suggests that different modes of collaborative interaction, familiar from experiential performance and other radical art practices, can elucidate the interactive interplay between controlling agents that characterize digital environments. The focus of the article is a project being developed in Second Life by architect Peter Ireland and writer/theatre director Elizabeth Swift, who, working as ‘Void’, have a twenty-year history of creating installation and performance projects which engage with digital media. ‘The Void Library’ (2009) uses Second Life to create an immersive experiential narrative work based around ideas from Jorge Luis Borges’ short story, ‘The Library of Babel’ (1941).
The way we tell stories shapes what we are: it articulates the way we position ourselves in relat... more The way we tell stories shapes what we are: it articulates the way we position ourselves in relation to the world. This article explores how immersive practices, as used in virtual reality and intermedial performance, provoke novel dynamics between artist and audience that no longer fit within Western traditions of aesthetic exchange and furthermore challenge our understanding of narrative production and reception. It proposes that new ways of reasoning are needed to allow audience agency and the evolving role of the artist to be explored more fully than is currently possible in mainstream theatre scholarship. One source that can provide a model for considering the dynamics between audience and performer in immersive performance is the Indigenous story systems of Australia. There is a significant synergy between the structure and operation of First Nation songlines and contemporary immersive performance. This is explored with reference to the work of contemporary anthropologists and...
All the world's a stage, said Jaques in Shakespeare's pastoral comedy, As You Like It , but the h... more All the world's a stage, said Jaques in Shakespeare's pastoral comedy, As You Like It , but the history of world literature tells a different story. Vast and ancient civilisations have been systematically excluded from records of stories told within our dominant literary tradition, which has focussed, rather, on narratives serving to define a particular view of aesthetic production and reception. 'World literature' excludes narratives which do not follow systematic rules-rules so embedded in tradition that we no longer notice them. The digital age, however, has thrown up new challenges for literature, concerning the relationship between author and reader. Increasingly, established modes of literature and drama are not fit for purpose in a world where immediacy and interactivity are valued above hierarchical storytelling. This paper argues that, in learning to understand how narratives might operate in a digital age, there is much to be learned from storytelling cultures that pre-date 'world literature'. It explores ancient narrative traditions from Indigenous Australia, North America and France, and explains how they can model certain kinds of immersive and interactive practices that are increasingly familiar in our digital age. It interrogates current storytelling practices that incorporate virtual reality and digital interactivity, and argues that the novel modes of engagement they provoke demonstrate the evolving relationship between artistic production and reception. The research draws on studies undertaken by academics from Indigenous cultures as well as incorporating new work from digital researchers and cognitive scientists.
All the world's a stage, said Jaques in Shakespeare's pastoral comedy, As You Like It , but the h... more All the world's a stage, said Jaques in Shakespeare's pastoral comedy, As You Like It , but the history of world literature tells a different story. Vast and ancient civilisations have been systematically excluded from records of stories told within our dominant literary tradition, which has focussed, rather, on narratives serving to define a particular view of aesthetic production and reception. 'World literature' excludes narratives which do not follow systematic rules-rules so embedded in tradition that we no longer notice them. The digital age, however, has thrown up new challenges for literature, concerning the relationship between author and reader. Increasingly, established modes of literature and drama are not fit for purpose in a world where immediacy and interactivity are valued above hierarchical storytelling. This paper argues that, in learning to understand how narratives might operate in a digital age, there is much to be learned from storytelling cultures that pre-date 'world literature'. It explores ancient narrative traditions from Indigenous Australia, North America and France, and explains how they can model certain kinds of immersive and interactive practices that are increasingly familiar in our digital age. It interrogates current storytelling practices that incorporate virtual reality and digital interactivity, and argues that the novel modes of engagement they provoke demonstrate the evolving relationship between artistic production and reception. The research draws on studies undertaken by academics from Indigenous cultures as well as incorporating new work from digital researchers and cognitive scientists.
International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, Sep 18, 2012
The following section, ‘Mixed-Media Performance Exercises for the Classroom’, is an unprecedented... more The following section, ‘Mixed-Media Performance Exercises for the Classroom’, is an unprecedented one-off section for IJPADM, which we intend as a practical handbook or user’s guide for scholars, artists and students interested in exploring media in the classroom. As co-editors of this special issue, Elise and Jen were fortunate to be working with Linsey Bostwick, a long-time creative/producing collaborator with Big Art Group and many other New York performance groups, who assisted in curating and setting up this special section. Because our aim for this section was to appeal to a range of ‘users’, and because we are working across different systems in the United States and the United Kingdom, we have deliberately included a diverse set of exercises that might be used in the classroom, in a workshop scenario and/or in art-making practices. While the exercises included here are largely aimed at university-level students, we feel that they are flexible and open enough to be adapted to...
International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, 2012
The following section, ‘Mixed-Media Performance Exercises for the Classroom’, is an unprecedented... more The following section, ‘Mixed-Media Performance Exercises for the Classroom’, is an unprecedented one-off section for IJPADM, which we intend as a practical handbook or user’s guide for scholars, artists and students interested in exploring media in the classroom. As co-editors of this special issue, Elise and Jen were fortunate to be working with Linsey Bostwick, a long-time creative/producing collaborator with Big Art Group and many other New York performance groups, who assisted in curating and setting up this special section. Because our aim for this section was to appeal to a range of ‘users’, and because we are working across different systems in the United States and the United Kingdom, we have deliberately included a diverse set of exercises that might be used in the classroom, in a workshop scenario and/or in art-making practices. While the exercises included here are largely aimed at university-level students, we feel that they are flexible and open enough to be adapted to...
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