Immersion and participation in Punchdrunk's theatrical worlds / Carina E. I. Westling.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Westling, Carina E. I., author.

Series:

Performance + design

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Punchdrunk Theatrical Experiences.

Theatrical companies--Great Britain.

Theatrical companies.

Performing arts--Audiences.

Performing arts.

Theater--Philosophy.

Theater.

Participatory theater.

Great Britain.

Genre:

Drama.

Physical Description:

vi, 200 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York, NY : Methuen Drama, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2020.

Summary:

Immersion and Participation in Punchdrunk's Theatrical Worlds is a detailed account of the company's award-winning productions and their historical context. Examining Punchdrunk's role as pioneers of immersive theatre in the UK through a range of their productions including Sleep No More and The Drowned Man besides theatrical works such as Faust, The Duchess of Malfi and Kabeiroi, and cross-platform productions like The Moon Slave, The Borough and The Oracles, the book presents an original framework for understanding immersion in theatrical and mixed reality experiences. Central to the book is a study of how immersive experience is produced in interaction with physical and digital scenography for participatory audiences. Through ethnographies of the company, their designers, actors, producers and audiences, the book interrogates the relationship between the aesthetics of interaction and the experience of immersion in Punchdrunk's work. The theoretical framework that the book introduces affords analyses of material cultures and the influence of technology on interaction design in theatre and beyond, and offers a blueprint for next-generation immersive design and scenography for interactive multimedia environments.

Contents:

1 Immersion in Punchdrunk's Theatre p. 13

Working with Punchdrunk: sensing, making and thinking p. 19

Scaling up: space, time, audiences p. 26

Audience immersion on- and offline p. 31

Theatres of action p. 36

2 A Genealogy of the Immersive Aesthetic p. 43

Key influences on the immersive aesthetic p. 45

Anti-realist modernism in experimental theatre p. 48

Complicity and participation p. 57

Blended spaces and the vertigo of transformation p. 63

Punchdrunk's emerging aesthetic p. 67

3 Punchdrunk's Interactive Systems p. 73

The shadow choreography and structure of Punchdrunk's worlds p. 79

Emergence and order p. 85

Art-work and algorithmic audiences p. 91

4 Behind the Interface - Making Punchdrunk's Storyworlds p. 97

Building storyworlds p. 101

Devising and performing p. 106

5 Audience Experience and Participation p. 119

Analysing Punchdrunk audiences p. 120

Active immersion p. 124

The effects of anonymity p. 126

Delinquent system aesthetics p. 130

6 The Shape of Agency in Interactive Storyworlds p. 141

Perspectives on agency in interactive systems p. 142

Scenography as experience infrastructure in physical and virtual worlds p. 150

The postdigital sublime: beyond the digital mythos p. 154

7 Impure Futures p. 161

Condemned to change p. 164

The sublime versus efficiency p. 166

Harnessing the un-modern p. 173.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1350101958

9781350101951

135010194X

9781350101944

OCLC:

1102794324