Improving live performances
A technician’s view
Sometimes I like to strip away the accepted uses for things and ponder what their most basic components and functions are. Abstraction is good for keeping us sane but peeling away those layers and looking at functionality is how new systems come to be, it’s a way to think about things that uncovers opportunity for innovation.
Let’s look for example at a dancer on stage, she’s telling a story, visualizing a music track, entertaining, seducing, emoting, all whole body functions. What if we focused just on her feet, the tip of her pointe shoes. Now she’s drawing lines, all over the space. We could visualize that by mounting an LED to her feet (hope she doesn't crush it) and then taking long exposure photographs or film the performance with a slow motion camera.
This might make a very cool ad campaign for a line of ballet flats but speed and budget constraints dictate that an idea like this would (and should) be executed by buying a stock photo of a dancer, removing the background and adding in the light trails with image editing software [Time taken: 1 hour, Resources: 1 Employee and a laptop].
Technology has pushed performing arts/artists into near obsolescence with regards to corporate art work. Jobs that still exist are typically low wage and creatively numbing (Promo girls?). And what says performing artists want to do corporate work any way?
Do they?
What if people just wanted to perform? Can the live performance, produced and presented by an artist/company (meaning not a paid gig) be a viable way to earn real money?
How might we engineer the experience of live performances, within the context of the existing, ticket/merchandise sales and advertising model, to engage more patrons? And, how could we do this utilizing the spaces we already have?
Two approaches: Diversify and Augment
Two potential methods are made available us through the lens of the technical elements of a production. The idea is to design hybrid experiences in physical performance spaces by exploiting the fundamentals of art and available technology.
The first approach is to manipulate the contents of the space/performance through technology.
Take for example projections, traditionally used as backdrops displaying some fixed image, or, as a means of displaying video assets. Projections can be taken out of the realm of the static rectangular media object on some flat surface and be utilized on textured, other-shaped surfaces combined with clever motion graphics to create a more engaging encounter. Likewise, LED technology which is common in the general lighting rig can be brought to stage level through utilizing smaller units and modified controllers (wireless DMX transceivers etc.). See LED's in tutu.
Other tricks include using performers’ bodies to change (or appear to) the contents of the space. This method adds elements of interactivity not only between the performers and the static stage properties (and the audience members …naturally) but also with the technical elements of the production (though at this point I’d hope they’d be seen not as distinguishably ‘technical’ but simply a part of the performance).
The video below shows a project from a developer who wanted to create “tools for translating movement, gesture, and dance from the body to interactive music”. He teamed up with the dancer seen in the video who is performing and ‘creating’ (from programmed options and interaction controls) the music as he goes. The project takes the movement from existing solely on the dancers body and attaches additional meaning to it. That is what the concept of diversifying through technology is about; how can we, add new layers of meaning to elements that already exist.
Dancer: Paul Walker Project Blog: chrisvik.wordpress.com
The second approach, augment, refers to changing the way audience members experience or perceive the elements of the performance. It often includes taking what we would normally expect them to imagine and making that into a physical experience. Some elements of production naturally lend themselves to creating these kinds of experiences, like the vibrations associated with the creation of sound. The Michael Jackson ONE show by Cirque du Soleil had 3 speakers built into every seat to create a feeling of immersion. Imagine standing in a packed concert, one of the things the speaker trick re-creates is physical feeling of other bodies moving around/against you … minus the sweat. That is augmenting, pulling the user into the experience by getting the production elements close to them.
Augmenting visual experience is also possible. Jane Gauntlett is founder of the interactive theatre collective Sublime and Ridiculous which designs performances/experiences like ‘In My Shoes’ which uses augmented reality technology, like personal video displays to immerse audience members, through manipulating their own senses, in what it is like to be someone else (living with a disability, performing a specialized job, committing a murder). These are a collection of first-person documentary style interactive performances.
She pointed out in an article for the Guardian that the symbiosis of theatre and tech is common in contemporary performance and cited the example of high-tech Kabuki theatre in Japan where portable monitors are utilized to display subtitles so the audience can better understand the art-form that is often difficult to comprehend. Similar augmented projects have been implemented to aid hearing impaired audience members.
Despite her work, Gauntlett’s opinion on the future of technology in theater is this:
“I don’t think theatre’s survival and relevance depends on embracing technological advances. The point is there is room for everything, and technology-driven theatre will gain momentum as technology becomes ever more integral to people’s daily lives.” — Gauntlett
I think we’re already at the point where people will be accepting of the use of more (personal? invasive? new?) technology in performances. In fact it is one of the easiest things we can exploit right now to draw bigger audiences and increase the lucrativeness of the industry. The challenge (or charge) now is one of adoption, which means willingness to invest in equipment, availability of people capable of creating (and willing to) through the lens of technology, and the availability of people who can manipulate technology.
Thoughts?
Recommended Watching:
The Art & Technology of Cirque du Soleil
Disclaimer: Written from my third world point of view.