Dead voices and lost sounds: an imagined sonic history

A project description of a sound art installation and interactive performance presented as part of the Up Close Festival in New York City in the winter of 2019/2020. The article is authored by the creator and director of the piece, Adrienne Kapstein. Created for an all-age audience, the piece was a unique, relational and socially engaged experience that merged sound art, live performance, illusion, technology, and audience participation. Designed to be completed in partnership with members of the community it sought to serve, the piece invited participation from every audience member through multiple and varied means of engagement.

A Review of Zoom interactive performance, 'Helping Hands': process, distress, success and who was helped.

Intervention for Russell Anderson’s work-in-progress Interactive Zoom theatre performance conducted on 6th August 2021 at 1:00 pm (U.K time), for a PhD thesis at Oxford Brooke's University was called 'Helping Hands'. Exploration and involvement of socio-digital options in Zoom theatre performativity, invokes questioning the adaptive process, distress and success as well as whom are we helping by being involved? Are we helping the company hosting the Zoom application, digital-theatre experimenters, the characters in the play, real people with similar socio-political problems as depicted in the play, ourselves or Russell Anderson? My personal experience and observations, beginning from receiving the digital mail invitation and background information of the performance, until the discussion about the work, in the end will be narrated with critical observations on each character's role and background, audio-visual spectrum, additional software and applications used, spect-actorship and employment of the break-out room feature of the Zoom application. The referenced theatre genres and probable methodologies employed in structuring the performance will be discussed by referring to Sir Andersons personal notes on the matter. The emotions and doubts, particularly that of whom I was helping, during the performance will be addressed in terms of the nature of the interactive, hyperdrama’s structure and the overall effect that it influenced. Its outcome will be critically compared with observations made by other scholarly reviewers on other Zoom adaptive performances, namely, Karen by The Transit Ensemble, Newspaper Theatre workshop by Seattle Rep, The Belle’s Stratagem by Red Bull Theatre, Time Machine by Creation Theatre and A Midsummer Night’s Dream by CtrlAlt_Repeat, while addressing Interaction, communication, mediatization and liveness in digital theatre.

Interactive performance: the digital of theatre

The purpose of this MRP is to explore the nature of Peak Experiences, which Maslow refers to as the combined response of the emotions, senses, intellect and imagination that are often experienced by people who have achieved self actualization. Using the theatre as an environment that creates meaning and fulfillment and exploring the relationship between theatrical engagement experiences and digital media experiences, the goal of this paper is to determine how engagement practices between both media can function in harmony, in order to produce the hedonic experiences that Maslow describes. This analysis is done by comparing various immersive theatre companies and interactive design companies who are pushing the boundaries of their fields and attempting to produce infectious and enlightening experiences in their area of expertise.

Interactive performance: the digital of theatre

The purpose of this MRP is to explore the nature of Peak Experiences, which Maslow refers to as the combined response of the emotions, senses, intellect and imagination that are often experienced by people who have achieved self actualization. Using the theatre as an environment that creates meaning and fulfillment and exploring the relationship between theatrical engagement experiences and digital media experiences, the goal of this paper is to determine how engagement practices between both media can function in harmony, in order to produce the hedonic experiences that Maslow describes. This analysis is done by comparing various immersive theatre companies and interactive design companies who are pushing the boundaries of their fields and attempting to produce infectious and enlightening experiences in their area of expertise.

AI for interactive performance: Challenges and techniques

AI techniques and systems are pervasive to the media and entertainment industry, with application ranging from chatbots and characters to games and virtual environments. A common feature characterising these applications is given by the intent to introduce a narrative element in the user experience, often conveyed through some type of performance. In this paper, we analyse the contribution of AI techniques in the design and realization of a dramatic performance, an interactive system participated by human performers and audiences through some type of enactment. Drawing on real applications developed for innovative performances, we propose an architectural model that forms the technical platform of the system, and discuss how it can be deployed using Artificial Intelligence techniques with reference to real, experimental applications created in the last two decades.

MUSICAL DRAMATICS OF CHILDREN'S PUPPET SHOW

The musical dramaturgy of a child's puppet show is a unique phenomenon, characterized by brevity, conciseness, minimalism of forms and structures. It relies on the generally accepted laws of theatrical productions, which include the exposition, the outset, the culmination, the denouement, and so on. Specific features of the children's puppet show are manifested in the plot-sense, figurative and genre aspects, as well as in the means of musical and artistic expressiveness. The basis of the puppet show is the genre of the fairy tale, which in the form accessible to the children reveals the main meaning of the artwork. Through the genre of fairy tales, children distinguish good deeds, truth and lies, learn about living and inanimate nature, people, fairy-tale characters, fantasize, ponder, memorize. The imagery that are revealed in the puppet show are actual to the child. The musical side of the performances contributes to his perception. Particular importance is the theater dramaturgy and musical dramaturgy of the children's puppet show. They contribute to the organization of the musical and artistic consciousness of the child, who first gets acquainted with the theater world. The musical dramaturgy of the children's puppet show is based on song and folklore genres. The musical and artistic expressiveness is based on the melody of the word and the structural and rhythmic patterns of verbal speech. The analysis of the integral dramaturgy of the children's puppet show testifies to the birth of original, original genre models – a fairy tale with music, a musical fairy tale and an interactive performance. Children's puppet show is close to the psychology of children's perception. At the same time, it has musical, artistic, teaching and educational significance. Puppet show captivates and helps children enter into real life with the help of artistic-figurative and musical-figurative experiences and impressions. In this process, dramaturgy, as well as various means of musical and artistic expression, a decisive role in the play. Moreover, successful dramaturgic decisions of the play control the perception and consciousness of the audience and lead it to the expected results for the authors of show. With respect to the children's audience, the result should be considered not entertainment, but educational and educational success. It is here that the main meaning of children's puppet shows is concluded, which through the artistic influence form and develop the personality of a small person.

Playing with Practice Theory: Preliminary Remarks on the Work of Performance Ecologies in 21st Century Bangkok

This article builds a framework for considering the place of contemporary performance groups in 21st century Bangkok. It grounds performance groups in ensembles of performance practices developed by groups as part of their unique performance cultures. The varied ensembles of performance practice of three such groups – the Pichet Klunchun Dance Company, the 8X8 Theatre Group, and the B-Floor Artist Collective – are embodied in these groups’ distinctive interactive performance styles and tied to the different creative spaces where they work. The groups’ artistic practices and their working spaces are produced within larger ecologies of performance spanning the urban landscape of 21st century Bangkok. The article suggests this framework as a richer way to study performance cultures in Thailand. Relating the performance landscape of Bangkok’s contemporary theatre scene to the embodied artistic practices of different groups shows how their unique performance cultures help to enliven the city’s distinctive cultural ecology of performance.

Performance model’s development: a novel approach encompassing ontology-based data access and visual analytics

The quantitative evaluation of research is currently carried out by means of indicators calculated on data extracted and integrated by analysts who elaborate them by creating illustrative tables and plots of results. In this approach, the robustness of the metrics used and the possibility for users of the metrics to intervene in the evaluation process are completely neglected. We propose a new approach which is able to move forward, from indicators’ development to an interactive performance model’s development. It combines the advantages of the ontology-based data access paradigm with the flexibility and robustness of a visual analytics environment putting the consumer/stakeholder at the centre of the evaluation. A detailed description of such an approach is presented in the paper. The approach is illustrated and evaluated trough a comprehensive user’s study that proves the added capabilities and the benefits that a user of performance models can have by using this approach.