School of Journalism and Mass Communications

Faculty of Economic and Political Sciences

Digital Performance: The Use of New Media Technologies in the

Performing Arts

BY
Miran Bulut

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF DIGITAL MEDIA, COMMUNICATION AND JOURNALISM

Specialization: Digital Media Culture and Communication

Supervisor: Charalampos Dimoulas

May 2018

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Dedication
I dedicate this thesis to my mother, Sibel, who taught me how to keep believing in myself
through all challenging times of my life.

Acknowledgments
First and foremost, I have to thank to my family and friends for their love and support
throughout my life.
I would like to sincerely thank to my supervisor Dr. Charalampos Dimoulas and PhD student
Anastasia N. Katsaounidou for their patience and beyond-helpful and guiding advice.
Acknowledgments are also for my translator friend, Elmas Taştan, who helped me with the
proof-reading and translation of this thesis with patience.
Finally, my deepest gratitude to my interviewees Joris Weijdom, Johannes Birringer, Otto
Krause and Milan Loviska for their helpful and wise answers.

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ABSTRACT
This research project analyses the relationship between performing arts and new media
technologies. The project explores this interchange through the lens of a mobile application
protocol which, we submit, could be employed to augment drama performances through an
interactive approach. The research problem rests on the question of how modern technology has
shaped the perception of performing arts in the contemporary techno-culture. The research is
supported by expert interviews, all of which have bolstered my main finding that technology
acts as an extension of the outer-world, as well as society. Thus, the overarching contribution of
this research posits that performing arts should acknowledge this finding in order to reflect shifts
within the techno-culture.

KEY WORDS
performing arts, new media technologies, mobile application prototype, techno-culture, human-
machine

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Table of Contents
1.Introduction………………………………………………………………………………….7
1.1 What is the meaning of the Terms ‘Digital’ and ‘Performance’?…………………………….8
1.2 A Brief History of Digital Performance……………………………………………………10
1.2.1 The Lineage of Digital Performance from ‘Deus Ex Machina’ to ‘Mixed Reality
Technology’……………………………………………………………………………………10
2. Literature Review….………………………………………………………………………13
2.1 Liveness From Photography Perspective..…..……………………………………………13
2.2 Liveness From Performance Perspective…..……………………………………………..17
2.3 Expanding the Perspective of Liveness….….…………………………………………….19
2.4 Performance From Techno-Cultural Perspective…………………………………………20
3. New Media Technologies and Performing Arts- Problem Definition and Project
Motivation…………………………………………………………………………………….22
3.1 Graphics, 3D Design……………………………………………………………………….22
3.2 Artificial Performers………………………………………………………………………..26
3.3 Virtual and Mixed Reality……………………………………………………………….30
3.3.1 Virtual Reality…………………………………………………………………………30
3.3.2 Mixed Reality…………………………………………………………………………..35
3.4 Mobile Applications………………………………………………………………………..39
3.5 Trans-media Storytelling…………………………………………………………………41
3.6 Problem Definition: Technology vs. Performing Arts……………………………………..43
4. Project Analysis, Design and Implementation: ‘Please Do Not Turn Off Your Mobile
Phones’ a Mobile Application Prototype for Interactive Theatre Plays…………………..46
4.1 Research Methodology……………………………………………………………………46
4.2 Research Findings…………………………………………………………………………48
4.2.1 Performing Arts after Digital Revolution………………………………………………..48
4.2.2 The Human and The Machine………………………………………………………….49
4.2.3 What are the Artists Searching for?……………………………………………………..50
4.2.4 Rival or Collaborator……………………………………………………………………51
4.2.5 Predictions about the Future of Performing Arts……………………………………….51

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 4.2.6 Development, User-testing and Evaluation Process of a Digital Performance…………..52
4.3 Project Analysis……………………………………………………………………………..52
4.3.1 Similar Ideas…………………………………………………………………………….54
4.3.2 Target Group/ Users……………………………………………………………………..56
4.3.3 Technical and Functional Features………………………………………………………56
5. Designing and Implementation………………………………………………….…………58
5.1 The Application…………………………………………………………………………...58
5.2 ‘You Have 1 New Notification’ and the Questions……………………………………….62
5.3 Creating High Fidelity Prototypes in Axure RP…………………………………………..65
6. Evaluation…………….…………………………………………………………………….67
6.1 Evaluation Criteria………………………………………………………………………..64
6.2 Qualitative Evaluation and Results…………………………………………………………70
7. Conclusions………………………………………….……………………………………..76
7.1 Summary and Conclusions…………………………………………………………………76
7.2 Thesis Novelty and Contribution………………………………………………………..…77
7.3 Further Work……………………………………………………………………………….78
8. Bibliography - List of References………………………………………………………….80

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LIST OF FIGURES
Fig1: A scene from “Sunday in the Park with George” by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine
Fig2: A scene from ‘Icarus’ by Michel Lemieux and Victor Pilon
Fig3: A scene from ’Hakanai’ by ‘Adrien M et Claire B’
Fig4: A scene from‘Exoskelton’ by Stelarc
Fig5: A scene from ‘Robots, Avatars and Ghosts’ by Mixed Reality Performance Lab
Fig6: A scene from Sayonara by Seinandan
Fig7:“Virtual Reality Triangle”(Burdea, Coiffet 2003)
Fig8: ‘Sensorama’
Fig9: A scene from ‘The Adding Machine’ by Mark Reaney
Fig10: ‘To Be with Hamlet’ by Hamlet VR and NYU Tandon School of Engineering
Fig11: ‘Reality-Virtuality Continuum’ by Paul Milgram and Fumio Kishino
Fig12: A scene from ‘Third Life Project’ by Territorium KV (AT), Simula Research Lab (NO),
MIH Media Lab/Stellenbosch University (ZAF) and Embedded Systems/University of Duisburg-
Essen (DE)
Fig13: A screenshot from ‘Karen’ application by Blast Theory
Fig14: The promo video of ‘Deviator’ by Pvi Collective
Fig15: The Trailer video of ‘Last Call’ by 13th Street
Fig16: Storyboard for the working principle of the application
Fig17: Screenshot of the ‘Home Page’
Fig18: Screenshot of the ‘The Play’
Fig19: Screenshot of ‘The Gallery’
Fig20: Screenshot of ‘The Venue’
Fig21: Screenshot of‘ The Characters’
Fig22: Screenshot of ‘The Author’
Fig23: Screenshot from ‘Where is My Seat?’
Fig24: Screenshot of ‘You Have 1 New Notification’
Fig25: Storyboard for the 1st Question
Fig26: Storyboard for the 2nd Question
Fig27: Storyboard for the 3rd Question
Fig28: ‘Basics of User Experience’ Design by INTERACTION DESIGN FOUNDATION

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1. Introduction
In today’s information age, human life is overrun by technology, and as Marshall McLuhan
states “any technology gradually creates a totally new human environment”. We cannot deny the
influence of technology has even on our daily routines and this progress of technology seems
endless as long as human exists. The human has extended their existence in space during the
‘mechanical ages’, with the ‘electric technology’ the central nervous system has enlarged and
finally the human has reached the phase of ‘the technological simulation of consciousness’
which means that human’s senses and nerves has extended by various media. (Luhan, 1964) R.L
Rutsky expresses his thoughts on the technological transformation of humanity as following:
“From the perspective of the ever more technologized cultures of the industrialized world, it
seems increasingly difficult to avoid the sense that, somehow, the entire world has undergone an
indefinable but undeniable change, a kind of mutation.” He defines the technological shift of
humanity as ‘mutation’. This mutation has shaped the perception of performing arts in the
contemporary techno-culture. In this thesis, we investigate the relationship between performing
arts and this ‘totally new human environment’ or ‘mutation’.

This study aims to explore the process of developing a mobile application prototype, where the
technology could be used for augmenting drama performances with an interactive approach.
While doing this, we located the following quote of Jean Baudrillard in the background of the
idea; “We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.”
This quote inspired us to create this project, to investigate and to reflect upon the relationship
between human and machine. We asked ourselves how a behaviour which has become an
everyday routine – i.e. touching the screen - can transform into a meaningful action. Using
technology as the main investigative tool in a fictional theatre production would create an
interesting irony and is worth questioning. Therefore, this study starts with explanations on what
digital performance is as an output of new media technologies, and continues with a brief history
of digital performance. The second section called ‘Literature Review’ investigates the liveness
debate which creates the background debate of digital performance. The third part of the study
aligns the cutting edge technologies in the performing arts and gives different appropriate
samples from the performing arts domain all over the world. The third part also includes the
problem definition called ‘Performing Art vs. Technology’, and it basically discusses the
audience affected from the contemporary techno-cultural situation and developed new habits of

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watching performances. In this study, we conducted a couple of interviews with the
professionals, artists and scholars from the field of digital performance as we find it essential to
clarify the findings of our research that will shape the last form of our project.

Our project has reached a concrete foundation with the findings collected from the literature
screening and investigation of the currently in use new media technologies and digital
performances, as well as interviews, and these findings reveal the necessity of embracing
modern technologies in performing arts. We think that this new language introduced by the
technology should be spoken and acknowledged by all performing arts. Although the concept of
liveness remains unchanged in principle, each new technology redirects the way performing arts
are expressed and the way of interacting with the audience.(Dixon, 2007) And eventually, this
leads to the mutation of performing arts – just like the mutated techno-culture. At this point, our
project is an attempt to provide a respond to this techno-cultural situation from the perspective
of theatre – among other performing arts.

1.1 What is the meaning of the terms ‘Digital’ and ‘Performance’?

Oxford Dictionary defines ‘digital’ and ‘performance’ as follows.
“Digital: 1. (of signals or data) expressed as series of the digits 0 and 1, typically represented by
values of a physical quantity such as voltage or magnetic polarization. Often contrasted with
analogue.
2. (of a clock or watch) showing the time by means of displayed digits rather than hands
or a pointer.
Performance: 1. An act of presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment.
2. The action or process of performing a task or function.”
Digital Performance has a wide scope as both words can be individually used in a wide range of
fields.(Dixon,2007) In order to avoid any confusion for the reader, in this section, we will
explain what we exactly imply with “Digital Performance”.
Lately, the term ‘Digital’ has become a very generic word; any tool or application using data in
the form of numerical digits or a chip can be called digital while the term ‘performance’ can be
used in various fields to refer to different meanings. (Dixon, 2004) It can be used in daily life,
arts, sports, rituals, technology, business life, sexuality, plays, etc. (Sezgin, 2010) The reason
why we used the term ‘performing arts’ in our title is that the term ‘performing arts’ may be

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confused with ‘performance art’ that is one of the genre of performing arts built on actions
performed by the artist; it can be live or recorded, improvised or scripted, and in the
performance art the artist use his/her own body as a medium. (Carlson,1996) We preferred to use
the term “performing arts” to refer to all actions performed on the stage regardless of the genre.
Apart from the term of performing arts, what we intend with the word of digital is to refer to any
kind of new media technology that can play a key role in any kinds of live performing arts
(theatre, dance, musical and performance art). In other words, arts which are performed on the
stage or so-called stage (it can be on the street, too) with the collaboration of digital tools
(independent of the level of collaboration).
Although, in fact, the contemporary technology has been used in the performing arts since
ancient times (as we will investigate it in section ‘A Brief History of Digital Performance’), the
term ‘digital performance’ became widely known only after 2000. In 2002, a new e-journal was
published with the name ‘Digital Performance: The Online Magazine for Artists Embracing
Technology’, created by The Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre (New York) and in 2004, a
master’s degree study was launched at Doncaster College, UK, called ‘Digital Performance’.
(Dixon, 2007)
For performing arts makers, digital technologies can serve as an extremely broad, colorful and
dramatic way to collaborate and also be helpful to create novel, immersive, revolutionary,
transformative and challenging art making processes and art works. As for the reception and
engagement of the audience, digital performance may be a way to meet the needs of interaction
and innovation. The technology develops just as the space expands constantly. Thus, it is highly
relieving to know the media between the audience and the performing arts will never be limited
so that theatre makers can always explore new artistic forms with the help of technology and
bring new paradigms to the field of performing arts.(Rutsky, 1999) Most importantly, art itself
can make use of new technologies.
To sum up, in this thesis, the term ‘Digital Performance’ is used in the meaning of live
performing arts that are created with the help of new media technologies as the key role of the
artwork.

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1.2 Brief History of Digital Performance
Digital performance practice is considered to start with the avant-garde movements of early 20th
century. Avant-garde, as we apply to art, means innovative art, and exploring new forms and
content. In the beginning of the 20th century, performing art makers, theorists of the age, realized
that the artistic forms and the content of the texts were not representing the transformed
evolution in the contemporary society anymore. Thus, they proposed a more interdisciplinary
approach to the art. Avant-garde approach enabled the audience to have a mixed experience of
fine arts, cinema, theatre, dance and music in the contemporary performing arts. However, the
roots of digital performance dates back to Ancient Greek Tragedies’ Deus Ex Machina, as we
will outline in detail below. (Burgheim, 2016)

1.2.1 The Origins of Digital Performance from ‘Deus Ex Machina’ to ‘Mixed Reality
Technology’
Regarding the use of technology in the performing arts, ‘Deus Ex Machina’ is likely to be the
first known example. As a term, ‘Deus Ex Machina’ means when there is an unsolvable problem,
an unexpected intervention would occur; it would be a new occasion, a character, an ability or
object which functions to solve unsolvable situations in a surprisingly manner in a narrative.
Literally, it means ‘god from the machine’ and its origins date back to Ancient Greek Tragedies.
In ancient plays, the god as a character would come down with a machine (crane). In ancient
plays this behavior is very common; when the story of plays become very intricate and the
author cannot find an interesting solution, gods interfere in the situation. (Chondros, Milidonis,
Vitzilaios, Vaitsis, 2013) In terms of the use of current technological means, ‘Deus Ex Machina’
may be considered as a modern device for its age and can be count as a digital performance
practice.(Dixon, 2007)
If we turn back to the avant-garde idea that means unifying of art disciplines, we see Richard
Wagner as the pioneer of this idea. He expressed his ideas in ‘The Artwork of the Future’ (1849);
he invented a notion where music, theatre, poetry, designing, lighting, visual art and singing can
unite and create multidisciplinary forms through theatre. This is called ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ (Total
Artwork). In other words, Richard Wagner proposed a theatre as a base to host other arts, and
this approach served as the breaking point of the tradition. (Wagner,1895)

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Puppets were the virtual actors of early 20th century. If we assume digital performance as the
disappearance of real actors in a sense, we are safe to say that Maeterlink’s theories about
puppets were the roots of contemporary digital performance. He believed puppets were a good
alternative to the actors as the real characters have a limited understanding of themselves and the
world. His theory was based on using puppets in theatre in order to create a symbolical
atmosphere that cannot be affected by the human presence and expressions. (Burgheim,2016)
From Bauhaus to Futurism, Expressionism, Surrealism and Dada can be seen as the keystones of
digital performance but especially futurism, in the sense of its philosophy, aesthetic and practice,
is the ancestor of digital performance. Futurism asserts the importance of industrial changes and
integrates radio or telephone with theatre. Overall, futurism admits the mechanization of the
society and turns it into an advantage on the stage.(Berghaus,2000)
When we go through the origins of digital performance, we come across with ‘Multimedia
Theatre’ between 1911- 1959. The movement started with the integration of film into the theatre
scenography. Currently, in the performing arts, the interaction between the real actor and the
media imagery is in demand though it is one of the very early multimedia theatre attempt.
Another one of the most important name for the evolution of multimedia theatre was Erwin
Piscator who brought newsreel film into the theatre stage. This approach was the first step
towards drama to mirror the political realities in combination with film and theatre. From 1940
to 1950, multimedia theatre was applied, and in the same years Robert Edmond Jones was
giving lectures called ‘The Theatre of the Future’. He said that film is an opportunity for theater
dramatists to express the inner feelings of the characters on the stage. He proposed to
simultaneously show a live actor and a screening on the stage so that the character’s inner world,
dreams and subconscious could be reflected –as he states in his book called ‘The Theory of
Modern Production’, “the two worlds that together make up the world we live in.” (Dixon,2007)
1960’s Avant-garde movement was the second biggest milestone of digital performance. While
computer technologies were definitely not widespread yet, they were more accessible for artists
to apply digital effects to the performing arts.60’s also witnessed very intense political and
cultural changes. This eventually gave rise to performance art and political theatre. In 1980’s,
information technologies gradually increased and reached to the age of internet followed by the
age of World Wide Web 2.0 in the 1990s. During these times, various new possibilities showed
up for digital performance practice in terms of new art forms, aesthetics and interactive

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experiences. Finally, the technology reached the age of Web 3.0 with robots, cyborgs, mixed
reality and so on. (Dixon,2007)
To sum up, performing arts are evolving with time due to the impact of developing technology.
As Steve Dixon says; “Digital performance is an extension of a continuing history of the
adoption and adaptation of technologies to increase performance and visual art’s aesthetic effect
and sense of spectacle, its emotional and sensorial impact, its play of meanings and symbolic
associations, and its intellectual power.”

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2. Literature Review
The main theoretical debate behind the field of digital performance is ‘liveness’ because,
basically, the terms ‘digital’ and ‘performance’ are in contrast to each other in terms of meaning.
(Dixon,2007) While ‘performance’ reminds us of mobility, liveness and making an effort, the
term ‘digital’ evokes a concept representing abstract and non-physical digital codes. In this
study, we will review the literature of digital performance through the debate of liveness. Oxford
English Dictionary defines ‘live’ as “a performance, heard or watched at the time of its
occurrence, as distinguished from one recorded on film, tape, etc.” (Auslander, 2008). Liveness
is an important ongoing debate with various aspects in many different disciplines. It
encompasses the fields of media studies, performance studies and music studies. Liveness
mainly discusses the transition from human to non-human contact in all disciplines. The
question of liveness in the performing arts first started with the incorporation of film into live
theatre. However, this discussion led to invention of photography as it is basically the first tool
to record visual information. (Dixon, 2004) In order to provide a wiser source of knowledge
about the debate, we will investigate the issue of liveness under four sections: first being
‘Liveness from Photography Perspective’, second, ‘Liveness from Performance Perspective’,
third, ‘Expanding the Perspective of Liveness’, and the fourth and the last one ‘Performance
from Techno- Cultural Perspective’.

2.1 Liveness from Photography Perspective

Photography is the starting point of recorded visuality. Therefore, we will start to investigate
liveness with the theoretical and critical writings of Walter Benjamin and Roland Barthes who
have been at the center of the discourse on liveness in the field of photography.(Dixon,2007)
We will start our discussion with the following statement of Walter Benjamin where he explains
what he exactly means by the notion of ‘reproduction of art’.

“In principle, the work of art has always been reproducible. Objects made by humans could
always be copied by humans... But the technological reproduction of artworks is something new.
Having appeared intermittently in history, at widely spaced intervals, it is now being adopted
with ever-increasing intensity.” (Benjamin, 1936, p.20)

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He stresses the importance of here-and-now of the work of art. He defends the authenticity
(place, time, uniqueness etc.) of art. He considers the work of art as an alive being, so its
mechanical reproduction means the dilution of presence and liveness. The following state of
Walter Benjamin shows us his thoughts of incomparability of liveness and his central argument
on mechanical reproduction.

“Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in
time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.” (Benjamin, 1936,
p.21)

He highlights the importance of the real atmosphere which means the artwork which produced
through film or photography is the elimination of essential auratic elements.

“First, technological reproduction is more independent of the original than is manual

reproduction. For example, in photography it can bring out aspects of the original that are
accessible only to the lens (which is adjustable and can easily change viewpoint) but not to the
human eye...technological reproduction can place the copy of the original in situations which
the original itself cannot attain.” (Benjamin, 1936, p.21)

On the other hand, he also states the uniqueness and beauty of photography with the following
quote.

“...cult of remembrance of loved ones, absent or dead. ...For the last time the aura emanates
from the early photographs in the fleeting expression of a human face. This is what constitutes
their melancholy, incomparable beauty.” (Benjamin, 1969, p.27)

Overall, Benjamin’s perception of liveness concludes that the irreplaceable unique aura of art
can be damaged by the technology and mechanical reproduction, and it shows his enthusiasm to
‘the original’.

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Roland Barthes’ theories on photography are shaped by his investigations on photography’s
nature, existence and authenticity. Regarding reproduction and here-and-now of the work of art,
in the following statement of Barthes the disagreement with Benjamin can be seen.

“What the Photograph reproduces to infinity has occurred only once: the Photograph
mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially.” (Barthes, 1980, p.4)

He believed that even if the photograph is the reflection of reality, from the moment when ‘click’
sound is heard, it transforms into another existence. Therefore according to him, the photograph
itself is the authentication; it has its own reality and references to the real.

“Every photograph is a certificate of presence...like the ectoplasm of "what-had-been": neither

image nor reality, a new being, really: a reality one can no longer touch.”(Barthes, 1980, p.87)

According to him, photograph transforms a dead moment into an alive being. It becomes a two
dimensional living image with a ‘click’.

“...the Photograph, they say, is not an analogon of the world; what it represents is fabricated,
because the photographic optic is subject to Albertian perspective (entirely historical) and
because the inscription on the picture makes a three-dimensional object into a two-dimensional
effigy. This argument is futile...the realists do not take the photograph for a "copy" of reality, but
for an emanation of past reality: a magic, not an art.. (Barthes, 1980,p.88)

In contrast to Benjamin, Barthes has never believed that photography is a tool to mimic the
reality. Hence, it cannot reproduce the original; it is already the original itself.
Walter Benjamin and Roland Barthes’ discourses are essential as a starting point to review the
debate of liveness in order to clarify the relationship between digital media imagery and
liveness.

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2.2 Liveness from Performance Perspective
As Philip Auslander explains in his book ‘Liveness: Performance’ (1999), in the Ancient Greek
Theatre, the audience would never had thought that they were watching a live performance
because there was no medium to record it at that time. Therefore, before media, there was no
notion called ‘live’. In this study, we will consider ‘live’ from a modern perspective, so our
views on ‘recorded’ will be based on this perspective.

“It was the development of recording technologies that made it possible to perceive existing
representations as “live.” Prior to the advent of those technologies (e.g., sound recording and
motion pictures), there was no such thing as “live” performance, for that category has meaning
only in relation to an opposing possibility.” (Auslander,1999, p.56)

With the emergence of media, a contradiction between ‘live or recorded’ came to exist. And as a
result, media and performance theorists argued to determine the basics of two arts – theatre and
cinema-. Film theorist and scholar Susan Sontag compares and contrasts these two forms of art
and explains that theatre with its nature is not convenient to function as a mass medium.
Sontag’s approach, in a way, divides live performances and mass media. Susan Sontag states the
following about the difference between live and recorded arts.

“One can film a play or ballet or opera or sporting event in such a way that film becomes,
relatively speaking, a transparency, and it seems correct to say that one is seeing the event
filmed. But theatre is never a "medium." Thus, because one can make a movie "of" a play but
not a play "of" a movie,...” (Sontag,1966, p.25)

On the contrary, performance theorist Philipp Auslander asserts that live performances can be
counted as a mass medium as in today’s economic and technologic situation, live performances
and mass media have become mediatized. Auslander says the following and disagrees with
Sontag.

“...there have long been plays “of” movies and television programs, and live performance can
even function as a kind of mass medium. Whereas the traditional view represented by Sontag’s

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comment sees theatre and the live performance arts generally as belonging to a cultural system
separate from that of the mass media, live forms have become mediatized...”(Auslander, 1999,
p.5)

Performance scholar and theorist Peggy Phelan’s approach is similar to Sontag in the sense of
separating two forms of art as media and performance. According to Phelan, live performance is
independent of mass media and this is, in fact, the power of it. She draws attention to the
damage of live performance caused by capitalist ideologies and reproduction. Considering
Walter Benjamin’s ideas on liveness, (the authentic aura of original) we can say that Phelan’s
theories are closer to him.

“Performance’s independence from mass reproduction, technologically, economically, and

linguistically, is its greatest strength. But buffeted by the encroaching ideologies of capital and
reproduction, it frequently devalues this strength.” (Phelan, 1995,p.149)

Media studies and arts scholar Steve Dixon brings a different perception to the debate. He
evaluates the issue of liveness from the spectator’s perspective. According to Dixon, liveness is
not merely the presence of the spectator. Liveness experience differs depending on the mode of
performance, the medium and the cultural expectations of the audience. For example; eating
popcorn, falling asleep or holding a conversation in the cinema may be tolerated in the West.
However, that would not be the case in an opera because the spectator feels the pressure of being
watched and this feeling shapes their attitude in different media, whether live or recorded.

“But even in live performance, audience behavior and attention differs radically according to its
form... Watching film, video, and digital media is a more voyeuristic experience than watching
live performance, since in the literal sense of the word, the onlooker is looking from a position
without fear of being seen by the watched.” (Dixon, 2007,p.130)

Theatre theorist and scholar Patrice Pavis defends the idea that live performance cannot escape
from the domination of socioeconomic-technological situations in which the society in. He

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regards the effects of media or mechanical reproduction as ‘contamination’ and says that theatre
cannot be kept as it is.

“In this overview of technological and aesthetic interference between theatre and the media, it
has been shown, even if in a rather mechanical way, that theatre cannot be ‘protected’ from any
media and that the ‘work of art in the era of technical reproduction’ (Benjamin 1936) cannot
escape the socioeconomic technological domination which determines its aesthetic dimension.
Technological and aesthetic contamination is inevitable...” (Pavis, 1992, p.128)

“Performance’s only life is in the present. Performance cannot be saved, recorded, documented,
or otherwise participate in the circulation of representations of representations: once it does so,
it becomes something other than performance.”(Phelan,1995, p.146)

In contrast to these differential approaches between live and mediatized forms, Philip Auslander
argues that liveness should not be determined using traditional ways, rather it should be
redefined for the digital age with a historical and contingent approach. In the following,
Auslander proposes a new way to redefine liveness.

“I argue that the relationship between live and mediatized forms and the meaning of liveness be
understood as historical and contingent rather than determined by immutable differences.”
(Auslander, 1999,p.8)

Peggy Phelan defines live performance as an unreproducible form while Philip Auslander takes
issue with the idea that liveness exists because of the existence of the mediatized form, in other
words, liveness is a result of mediatization. However, according to academician and film and
theatre maker Matthew Causey, both of the arguments are problematic. He claims that after the
digital revolution, the ontology of liveness has been transformed. In the following Causey
disagrees with Phelan and Auslander. According to him while Phelan disregards the effects of
technology on performance and creates indisputable walls between two media, Auslander draws
out an argument which has a dynamic materialism overlooks the most material manner of
marking the live.

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“I suggest that the ontology of the performance (liveness), which exists before and after
mediatization, has been altered within the space of technology.” (Causey, 2006, p.6)

2.3 Expanding the Perspective of Liveness

Philip Auslander defines liveness concept in his book ‘Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized
Culture’ based on its historical development. As he suggests, there are 6 types of liveness: first,
classic liveness (the one we intend up to now) that requires physical co-presence of performers
and audience and which occurs in the theatre, dance, concerts, sports etc. Second type of
liveness is live broadcast which needs temporal simultaneity of production and reception, and
the audience experience the event as it occurs. e.g. radio, television, Internet etc. The third one is
live recording which has a temporal gap between production and reception, possible to repeat
infinitely. e.g. LP, CD, film, DVD etc. The forth one, Internet liveness, means co-presence
among users on any kind of internet-based media. The fifth, social liveness, means connection to
others via mobile phones, instant messaging etc. The sixth and the last is the websites,
interactive media or chatterbots for feedback between technology and user. Mediatized liveness
has surpassed live broadcasting or live recording (television and film).
In today’s world, Internet is another space to talk about liveness. In his work called “Liveness,
'Reality,' and the Mediated Habitus from Television to the Mobile Phone,” Nick Couldry
proposes two new forms of liveness: “online liveness” and “group liveness”. According to him,
getting connected to the Internet via mobile phones gives opportunity to get connected to the
other people. Having instant messaging applications or social media makes the user be in an
ongoing liveness and thus these abilities create another sense of liveness. The ability to receive
information in real-time creates a perception like “If I can interact in real-time, then it is live.”
Couldry’s statements do not refer to what we intend with liveness (relationship between
production and audience). However, being aware of other forms of liveness gives us a wiser
perception about the debate. As Auslander states, the word ‘live’ also refers to connections and
interactions with ‘non-human agents’.

“The category “liveness” helps to shape the disposition to remain “connected” in all its forms,
even though (as we have seen) the types of liveness are now pulling in different directions.”
(Couldry, cited in Auslander,1999,p.61)

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2.4 Performance from Techno-Cultural Perspective
Philosopher Martin Heidegger’s opinions on technology are essential to shape live performances
from the techno-cultural perception. He claims that technology brings us a behavior to consider
as if everything is something that must be organized, and since everything presents itself
technologically, we do not see the distinctive elements of the things. Heidegger believes that the
core of technology is not how we consider technology to be; he questions the domination of
technology on humankind. According to him, the issue is the hidden nature of technology’s
essence. He describes technology as a way of bringing forth which is normally not possible to
show up.

“Because the essence of technology is nothing technological, essential reflection upon

technology and decisive confrontation with it must happen in a realm that is, on the one hand,
akin to the essence of technology and on the other, fundamentally different from it. Such a realm
is art.” (Heidegger, 1977, p.19)

In contrast to Heidegger, the educator John Dewey’s opinions on technology were more
pragmatic. He claims that technology could be a useful tool to develop humankind in every
aspect. He doesn’t see human on top of every existence; to him, human is a part of nature, and
technology is something man- made and may offer enormously essential opportunities to
improve our world. He did not criticize the technology with the same approach with his
contemporary philosophers including Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger, Gunther Anders and
Herbert Marcuse. He suggested to address technology with a pragmatist approach. Especially in
terms of education, he states that technology is a tool that even can be a substitute for educators.

“Consider the bare possibility that tools and works of art give the key to the question at
hand...Manufactured articles do not exist without human intervention; they do not come into
being without an end in view. But when they exist and operate, they are just as realistic, just as
free from dependence upon psychical states.”(Dewey, cited in Hickmann,1990, p.19)

Matthew Causey approves that since we have entered the post-human phase, it is inevitable to
keep human perception the same as it was once on performance. He questions what he calls ‘the

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(dis)appearance of theatre’ in virtual spaces. He believes in the ‘metempsychosis’ -“the supposed
transmigration at death of the soul of a human being or animal into a new body of the same or a
different species”- (Causey, 2006) of performance after digital revolution. In this age, we may
even talk about cyber-theatre which does not rely on the presence of the live performer as in film
and television. According to him, the question is whether it is necessary to use live elements in
cyber-theatre to make a genre distinction.

“The advent of the digital worlds of virtual environments, artificial intelligence and the
televisual…. have reconfigured our sense of time, space and subjectivity. Humankind is not what
it once was; we have entered a post-human phase…” (Causey, 2006, p.32)

A part of literary theorist Ihab Hassan’s studies were on the difference between modernism and
postmodernism. According to him, as the technology develops, many of the notions have
collapsed and this situation has given rise to other notions. As he suggests, there is a transition
from the sense of an art object or a finished work to process, performances and happenings. He
questions the intelligence of technology and its relationship with art.

“Has technology begun to affect . . . the very definition of art? Indeed, is it possible that
technology may be transforming human consciousness itself, so as to make art as we have
known it gradually obsolete?” (Hassan, cited in Dixon p.483)

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3. New Media Technologies and Performing Arts- Problem
Definition and Project Motivation
In this section, we will go through the very definition of ’new media’ and its ‘technologies’ in
order to avoid any kind of confusion. Furthermore, we will clarify what we intend with ’new
media technologies’ in this thesis. New media include the types of media that rely on computers.
For example, computer games, computer animation, interactive computer installation, mobile
applications, virtual worlds etc. are among these media. (Manovich, 2003), (Teemu, 2010) If a
medium tool does not contain any digital generative or interactive process, then it does not fall
into the field of new media. For instance, television programs -analog broadcast- , movies,
magazines and any kind of print media are not included in new media. (Manovich, 2003) This
part of our research focuses on the new media technology tools which are currently in use in
contemporary performing art forms, and aims to further investigate these new media
technologies, namely, graphics and 3D design, artificial performers, virtual and mixed reality,
mobile applications and trans-media. While investigating the technologies under these topics, we
will give examples from contemporary performing arts to clarify the use of particular
technology. We will also present the effect of technology on the content of the work and how
technology is integrated within art with specific reviews of works.

3.1 Graphics, 3D Design

3D computer graphics or, in other words, three dimensional graphics are graphics that use
geometric data with three dimensional representation. Three dimensional computer graphics rely
on almost the same algorithms as two dimensional computer graphics. In terms of computer
graphics software, the differences between 2D and 3D are not very clear; 2D applications can
use 3D techniques to achieve the same effects such as lighting, and 3D can use the same
rendering techniques with 2D. The software of 3D computer graphics produces computer-
generated imagery (CGI) by 3D modeling and 3D rendering. (Glassner,1994) The use of
computer-generated images, video projections or video mapping means to create a unique
artistic and technologic language. The projection screen or mainly additional media frame offers
a semiotic dialogue between the visuals and the live actions. Most theatre artists find the
emergence of the real and virtual more visceral, subjective and subconscious in terms of

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audience responses; it helps appealing to audience‘s senses and nervous system rather than
rational intellect. (Dixon,2007)
Theatre makers use computer graphics in the performing arts through projection techniques
including 3D holographic projection technique, Pepper’s Ghost technique (4D art), projection
mapping and video projection on cyclorama or canvas. These images can be used as a part of the
scenography and they also can be integrated with the live actors. Thus, they can be real-time or
recorded -interactive or using cinematic techniques.
‘Sunday in the Park with George’ by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine is a musical
production where video projecting is used as part of the production’s stage design. The
projection was made by British animation and visual effects company ‘Knifedge’ that won
several awards for their particular scenic design. ‘Knifedge’ brought the painting of George
Seurat called ‘A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte’ to life on the stage.
In this production, the transition of video production is aligned with the scene. Video projections
bring the proper atmosphere to the canvas on the stage.

Fig1:A scene from “Sunday in the Park with George” by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine
Source: http://www.projctn.com/sunday-park-george

For the field of projections, another technique is Pepper’s Ghost, also called 4D art. It is an optic
illusion technique that can be used in performing arts, museums, television and amusement

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parks. Simply, just a 45 degree angled mirror can be used but today, the technique uses a special
film. This very old technique was first used by scientist John Henry Pepper (1821–1900) in a
demonstration in 1862. (The illusion of the technique is making people and objects appear and
disappear; the audience views the stage and objects or people appear out of existence – like a
ghost – on the stage or objects transform into different objects all of a sudden. (Nickell, 2005)
The basics of the illusion require a stage that is divided into two rooms; one is where the
audience see the stage while the second is hidden to the side. Between two rooms, a plate of a
glass or plastic film is placed at an angle that can reflect the view of the other room towards the
audience. Generally, the angle of the glass or film is at 45 degrees. When the lights are bright in
the main room and dark in the blue room, the reflected image cannot be seen. When the lighting
in the blue room is increased, often with the main room lights dimming to make the effect more
pronounced, the reflection becomes visible and the objects within the blue room seem to appear
in thin air. A common variation uses two blue rooms, one behind the glass and one to the side,
which can be switched visible or invisible by alternating the lighting. (Nickell,2005)
The Canadian Company ‘Lemieux Pilon 4D Art’ uses Pepper’s Ghost technique in their
creations. The company fusions dance, music, theatre, visual arts and film with the direction of
Michel Lemieux and Victor Pilon who create hybrid productions that merge real and virtual.
Their theatre play ‘Icarus’ is an example for the use of Pepper’s Ghost and projection mapping.
The audience meet the magical virtual effect of these two techniques. The effects bring the
proper the atmosphere of the play according to the scenes and also create effects for the
performers like flying, floating or burning.

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 Fig2: A scene from ‘Icarus’ by Michel Lemieux and Victor Pilon
Source: http://4dart.com/en/creation/2014/icarus/

The collaboration of 3D elements, mappings, movement captors and digital images create
interactive effects on the stage. The digital dance and circus company ‘Adrien M et Claire B’
combines a choreographed performance with video projection mapping, computer-generated
images and movement sensors in order to offer a dynamic respond to the performer. In the
particular digital solo performance called ‘Hakanai’, the sounds and visuals are generated live,
creating a real and live relationship between the performer and the software. ‘Hakanai’ is a very
good example to see the complementary relationship of art and technology. ‘eMotion’ software
was developed by the company in 2006 to construct interaction between objects and real data. In
addition to the software, they use the support of sensors and controllers in order to manipulate
the images in accordance with the dancers’ movements. Thus, combining all these technologies
creates video projection mapping shows or installations that can be generated and animated in
real-time. The artistic effect of this combination is a dreamlike space that shapes and makes
visible the movement of air.

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 Fig3:A scene from ’Hakanai’ by ‘Adrien M et Claire B’
Source: http://www.faithistorment.com/2013/02/hakanai-conceptual-dance-performance-by.html

3.2 Artificial Performers

Marshall McLuhan sees technology as our extension; in a way, he thinks that technology is a
part of human evolution. He states that we are not just entangled with machines, rather, we co-
evolve them. The use of artificial performers is one of the most advanced technology in digital
performance. In early twentieth century, futurists used mechanical and robotic movements on the
stage and in the late twentieth century robots themselves took the stage to dance, act, and
perform. (Dixon,2004) The use of artificial performers leads to puppets. With the rise of avant-
garde theatre, the idea of using puppets as a replica of ideal actor came up to the performing arts,
because some theorists and theatre makers believed that puppets would bring a symbolical
atmosphere where human presence and expressions cannot affect the play; they thought as they
eliminate human being from theatre, the real meaning of the play would arise. Thus, autonomous
mechanisms show up to make the live performer disappear.
Oxford English Dictionary defines robot as a machine -especially one programmable by a
computer capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. Robots can be
controlled remotely or the control can be integrated in the robot. Robots do not necessarily have
to be in the form of a human or another being for which they are constructed to perform a task as
a machine. This is the point that makes the difference between robots and androids. Androids are

26
robots or synthetics that are designed to look and act like human, and both robots and humanoids
are inorganic creatures. However, cyborgs as ‘Cybernetic Organisms’ are beings with both
organic and bio-mechatronic body parts. Basically, cyborg is a human whose body is partially
mechanic. Cyborgs apply to an organism that has restored function or enhanced abilities due to
the integration of some artificial component or technology that relies on some sort of feedback.
(Thompson, 2017) The concept of robots, androids and cyborgs are mostly associated with the
science fiction genre. However, following the futuristic and avant-garde movement, performing
artists also started to use artificial performers to create meaningful artistic expressions. Since the
90’s, performance artist Stelarc has centered his works on the idea of ‘the human body is
obsolete’ and he effectively uses cyborgs in his performances. ‘Exoskelton’ is one of his
performances made in 1998. He uses a six-legged walking machine specifically designed for the
body. The cyborg is constructed as a human-like form with additional functions and it evokes the
mythical characters that are half human and half animal. (Clarke,2002) With this performance,
Stelarc highlights mechanic-human evolution and questions human’s separation from the nature.

Fig4: A scene from‘Exoskelton’ by Stelarc

Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/316096467577047318/

Theatre maker and scholar Gorkem Acaroglu makes a classification of three different artificial
actors based on the different relationships of technology as an actor. She focuses on

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‘Technological Puppets’, ‘Technological Performers’ and ‘Technological Actors’. The first one,
‘Technological Puppets’ are operated by human agency. The second one, ‘Technological
Performers’, have technology’s autonomous agency but do not interact with anything. The third
one, ‘Technological Actors’, are liberated from any human agency and make autonomous
choices. (Acaroglu,2014)
Gorkem Acaroglu investigated the use of live interactive technologies in dramatic theatre in her
project called ‘Mixed Reality Performance Lab (MRPL)’ which includes technologies such as an
industrial robot, 3D stereoscopic projection and live motion capture. The project was developed
based on an excerpt of Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts. The aim of the project was to discover the limits
and opportunities of the use of technology as a subject in theatre. In addition to this, the project
has showed the relationship between actors and technology, which is capable of real-time
spontaneous interaction in a dramatic theatre work. (Acaroglu, 2014)

Fig5: A scene from ‘Robots, Avatars and Ghosts’ by Mixed Reality Performance Lab
Source: http://deakin-creative-arts.tumblr.com/page/9

‘Seinandan’ is another theatre company that works with artificial performers. The theatre
company was founded by Oriza Hirata who also developed the theory of ‘contemporary
colloquial theatre’. Seinandan collaborated with Osaka University Robot Theatre Project and

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Tokyo University of Arts and developed plays like ‘Sayonara’, ‘Metamorphosis’, ‘Three Sisters’
and ‘I, Worker’. In these plays both robots and human actors are acting and this nature of the
play provides us with the possibility to evaluate postmodern theatre theory. Presence,
responsiveness, emotional ability of robots, the boundaries between human and artificial
performer, audience’s empathy capacity with liveness objects can be questioned. ‘Sayonara’ and
‘I, Worker’ are written and directed by Oriza Hirata and designed to show the robot’s capacity of
affection in dramatic theatre. (Soloski, 2013) Alexis Soloski reviews ‘Sayonara’ and ‘I, Worker’
as plays with blurred real person and automaton categories. With his own words, “In Sayonara, a
dying young woman (Bryerly Long) talks with her android caregiver, an eerily lifelike
automaton called ‘Geminoid F.’ In I, Worker, a young married couple interacts with two robot
servants, one of whom shares the depressive husband’s desire to retreat from the mandates of
working life. Whether the automata appeared human-like (Sayonara) or distinctly mechanical (I,
Worker), engaging dialogue between the human actors and their machine counterparts
simultaneously both emphasized the differences between person and automaton and blurred
those categories.”

Fig6: A scene from Sayonara by Seinandan

Source: http://www.seinendan.org/play/2016/12/5843

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Amit Drori is another theatre-maker who uses artificial characters in his theatre plays. His
practice basically can be defined as robotic puppets. He blends traditional hand-operated puppets
with self-made robots. He has named his practice as ‘robotic poetry’. Amit Drori designs robots
that are mostly made with wood in collaboration with Noam Dover and Michal Cederbaum.
They have created banks of behavior patterns, actions and expressions which can translate into
human-like gestures on stage. Their special interest is the intersection between craft and
technology. (Wallpaper, 2013) The mechanism of their play ‘Savanna’ reflects the reality of real
world, just as human masters the nature and manipulates it and the story of the play is told in the
space between the image and its creation.

Fig7:A scene from ‘Savanna’ by Amit Drori

Source: https://www.designboom.com/art/mechanical-creatures-at-the-barbican-by-amit-drori/

3.3 Virtual and Mixed Reality

3.3.1 Virtual Reality
Grigore C. Burdea & Philippe Coiffet define what virtual reality is by starting with what it is
not. Some researchers like Sheridan define virtual reality as a telepresence application in which
a user is immersed in a remote environment, or as Muller preferred to call it, an enhanced or
augmented reality which uses computer graphics or texts incorporated with the real images. Both

30
of the definitions are not suitable for what virtual reality is, because telepresence and enhanced
reality incorporate real images. Virtual Reality is a computer-generated simulation that creates a
real-like world, and this world can response to the user’s input. The input that the user present
like gestures or verbal commands can be detected and modified to the virtual world in real-time.
(Brooks, 1999), (Burdea, Coiffet2003) Burdea explains the key features of virtual reality with
his ‘Virtual Reality Triangle’, which includes three ‘I’ of interaction, immersion and
imagination. (Burdea, Coiffet 2003)

Fig7: “Virtual Reality Triangle”(Burdea, Coiffet 2003)

Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/518828819565261966/

‘Sensorama’ was the first device designed based on the idea of ‘Virtual Reality’ in 1956 by
Morton Heilig. The device conceived to provide a fully immersive experience to the user.
Sensorama has abilities to replicate sight, sound, touch, and smell. (Druck, 2006) Morton
Heiling called it ‘Experience Theater’, and explained his ideas about multi-sensory theatre in his
paper named ‘The Cinema of the Future’,1955 (Robinett, 1994) This mechanical device is
equipped with fans, a stereoscopic color display, a motional chair, odor emitters and stereo-
sound system. (Srivastava, Das, Chaudhury, 2015)

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 Fig8: ‘Sensorama’

Source:http://thirddimensionknowledge.blogspot.gr/2011/01/father-of-virtual-reality.html

Virtual Reality is a very suitable new media technology for the theatrical arts as it has the
potential to enhance the core features of theatrical arts experience, including audience immersion
which is the most crucial element for theatricality, and visual spectacle, imaginary worlds and
transformative spaces. Since VR is a solo and subjective first-person experience and brings
exactly the dramatic notions of mimesis and empathy, Howard Rheingold who wrote the book
‘Virtual Reality’ in 1991, views Virtual Reality as a medium which is extremely theatrical,
especially for ‘Aristotelian understanding of theatre’. (Dixon, 2006)

Theatre itself is the original virtual reality machine that offers the user (audience) interactivity
and immersion for an imaginary world. (Reaney, 2010) Steve Dixon says, “Theater has always
been a virtual reality where actors imaginatively conspire with audiences to conjure a belief
(otherwise known, after Coleridge, as a ‘suspension of disbelief’) that a bare stage is in fact the
courtyard of an ancient Theban palace, or the 1692 witch trial courtroom in Salem.”

One of the very first attempt for the emergence of virtual reality technology and theatre was
Elmer Rice’s ‘The Adding Machine’ play. Mark Reaney constructed the virtual scenic design of
the play in 1995.(Dixon,2007) The production offers the audience to participate in the virtual

32
world with live and computer-generated actors. The play continues within a virtual world which
is not recorded in advance; the virtual world would be changed according to the action of the
crew in real time. The audience interfaced to the virtual worlds (created with the combination of
computer graphics and projection equipment) by wearing three dimensional glasses. Both the
script and the technology were serving each other as the script is about a person who tries to find
happiness in a mechanized and dehumanized society. Having a scenic design with such
technology for such theatre play (in terms of context of the play) was very ironic and clever. The
actors performed in front of a rear projection screen where stereo-optically-polarized VR is
displayed. This imagery is created with ‘Virtus WalkThrough Pro’ software enabling audience to
view through 3D polarized glasses. The movement and navigation through the VR backgrounds
was rendered in real time and operated live by an offstage technician. The Using a mouse,
joystick or a similar device, VED (Virtual Environment Driver) moves through the simulated
spaces or changes the backgrounds based on the movements of the actors or developing dramatic
action. In addition, in order to improve the sense of immersion two additional projection screens
were placed with an angle of 45 degrees at both sides to display 3D images. Thus an
impressionistic and expressionistic presentation of characters, as well as psychological factors
(i.e. inner thoughts of the protagonist, etc.) are showcased. (Dixon, 2006)

Fig9: A scene from ‘The Adding Machine’ by Mark Reaney

Source:http://www2.ku.edu/~ievr/reaney/ciren/

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One of the latest theatre project to use virtual reality technology is ‘To Be with Hamlet’. It
enables audience to have an intimate experience with Hamlet Shakespeare’s one of the most
known dramatic character. The live performance allows the audience who has a VR headset to
experience it from anywhere in the world. It technically incorporates live performance into
shared game-engine VR and enables the audience to see the other fellow audiences in the virtual
world in real time through using cutting-edge multi-user Virtual Reality technology. When the
audience wear the VR head-set and start to experience To Be with Hamlet’s unique world, they
are able to discover 3-dimensional computer rendering of Hamlet’s castle as well as all the
characters in the theatre play. The three dimensional avatars of the characters are controlled in
real-time by live actors on a motion capture set. In a more detailed way, To Be with Hamlet
works with four main technologies namely, game engine platform, motion capture system,
telepresence platform and finally VR headset. Game engine is a platform that offers to create a
navigable and intractable three dimensional environments. Motion capture technology is the
system that allows to track, record and transform the performers’ actions into skeleton but, in
this particular project, the skeletal motion is streamed in real time to animate the avatars. The
other component of technology is the telepresence platform which allows the audience to gather
in virtual world and final technology which allows the audience to mediate to the performance is
the VR headset. (Weijdom, 2017) To Be with Hamlet shows that an immersive theatre with VR
technology can capture the traditional elements of theatre and reach its audience on a live
broadcast event.

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 Fig10: ‘To Be with Hamlet’ by Hamlet VR and NYU Tandon School of Engineering

Source: https://technical.ly/brooklyn/2016/11/11/vr-hamlet-javier-molina-nyu-magnet/

3.3.2 Mixed Reality

Virtual Reality uses the technology to immerse the user in a completely computer generated
world. It aims to cut the relationship between the real world and the user. However, Mixed
Reality is the merge of real and virtual worlds to offer new environments and visualizations to
the user. It mixes the physical world objects with virtual worlds’ objects and makes real-time
interaction possible through immersive technology. Basically, mixed reality is a concept meshing
the virtual and physical worlds into one interaction space. (Ohta, Tamura, 2014) If we accept this
definition, it can be said that even a mouse is a mixed reality device which transforms the
physical input into the virtual one. At this point, even if a mouse is seem as a perfectly
successful interface, in order to be called a mixed reality device, a device needs some more
extended features. A mouse has limitations to merge virtual worlds and real worlds like being
unidirectional (no inherent physical feedback from the virtual world) and limited to the two-
dimensional relative movements. (Young, Sharlin, Igarashi, 2011)

Paul Milgram and Fumio Kishino’s ‘The Taxonomy of Mixed Reality Visual Displays’ published
in 1994 was the first academic paper which used the term ‘Mixed Reality’ in the context of

35
computer interfaces. In this paper, Milgram and Kishino defines mixed reality as “… a particular
subclass of VR related technologies that involve the merging of real and virtual worlds...”. They
classify Mixed Reality as a blend of real and virtual worlds, which mediates a fully real
environment to a fully virtual one. Milgram and Kishino involved a “reality-virtuality
continuum” to classify augmented, virtual and mixed reality environments.

Fig11: ‘Reality-Virtuality Continuum’ by Paul Milgram and Fumio Kishino

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Milgrams-Reality-Virtuality-
Continuum_fig1_29487174

In the illustration above it can be seen that real environment and virtual environment sections are
at the opposing points of the continuum. Real environments represents solely the real objects
that can be seen in the physical world included what is observed via a conventional video
display of a real-world scene. Virtual environment section represents the environments
consisting solely of virtual objects like computer graphic simulation. In the present case, Mixed
Reality is the environment where real and virtual worlds’ objects are presented together within a
single display. Mixed Reality environment is in anywhere between the extrema of the virtuality
continuum. (Milgram, Kishino, 1994)

When it comes to performing arts, especially for theatre, as Joris Weijdom mentions in his article
called ‘Mixed Reality and the Theatre of the Future’, “...a theatre play is in many ways already a
Mixed Reality experience...”.In order to enhance the use of mixed reality technology in the
performing arts, we will investigate ‘Third Life Project’ which is created by an international
research collaboration (includes artists, computer scientists and engineers).

36
Artists Otto Krause and Milan Loviska have been cooperating in their ‘Third Life Project’ on the
development of mixed reality performances with an international team of computer sciences.
Basically, mixed reality performances means both mixing of the physical and the virtual as well
as combination of live performance and interactivity.
‘Third Life Project’ is an international arts-based research collaboration of Territorium KV (AT),
Simula Research Lab (NO), MIH Media Lab/Stellenbosch University (ZAF) and Embedded
Systems/University of Duisburg-Essen (DE). In the initial project phase (2014 - 2015) their main
areas of focus were to define the potential of virtual actions to perform real actions causing
extravirtual physical effects on physical objects (output devices) and effects on the bodily and
mental states and behaviours of persons in a performative setting.

In October 2015, the team presented three performance lectures (WUK Vienna) staging the real-
time video game of ‘Minecraft’ in a theatrical performance with the goal of devising a
distributed, hybrid and distinctive performance and ensuring a platform for knowledge-
exchange. The performance was based on extravirtual avatar interactions with performers and
objects in the physical world, rather than a specific narrative. After each performance, a
discussion was held with the spectators in an attempt to give an insight in how the artists and
also the experts work, and to exchange ideas about performing with mixed reality and ubiquitous
technologies.

The technological interface combined ‘Minecraft’ environments, novel tracking technologies

and connected objects of the Internet of Things (IoT). Minecraft defined as well the overall
aesthetics of the set design and ubiquitous objects embedded in the physical world. A computer
server developed for the FiPS project was present on stage to host the ‘Minecraft’ virtual world.
To move in the virtual world, a single camera worn by the performer observed a set of pre-
installed markers - CCTags. The performer walked barefoot on a soft carpet and, to move longer
virtual distances, he had to step out of it into the scrolling area. The carpet provided him with
haptic feedback for the transition in between the areas and reminded him of the borders of his
physical area. The off-the-shelf controller Leap Motion mounted on the front of Oculus and
integrated into the ‘Minecraft’ client allowed the performer to select, place, brake or manipulate
virtual objects.

37
The first performer was fully immersed into the virtual world while the second one experienced
it using a traditional 2D screen he could teleport the avatar to different virtual locations carrying
a physical block to the different locations with embedded sensors onstage. These applications
immersed the second performer into the game, allowing an open space for an power dynamics
between the performers. The first one had the power to activate through specific virtual actions
in Minecraft all the connected physical objects onstage. The second performer could act as a
kind of guardian for the first one. If the avatar could not get free or needed to get away quickly,
he had the chance to initiate the teleport. When the avatar got stuck in a hole in the virtual world,
the performers could jump the avatar out using their actions combined. This shows that the real-
life multiuser cooperation is capable of improving immersion through the interactions with
virtual environments an interpersonal dimension.

The general objectives of ‘Third Life Project’ focuses on how to address anew the performative
possibilities of environments, actions and objects on the different points of virtuality continuum
that aren't limited or constrained by the space they ontologically inhabit; what artistic strategies
and technology for the direct engagement of audience with elements of hybrid environments
could be further developed; and how to create platforms allowing confrontation of ideas between
the groups. While the objectives challenging the existing paradigms of aesthetics and critique
includes how the inclusion and coherent implementation of playability in an artwork could
facilitate emergent creativity and play, and how to re-examine our experience and practice of the
technologies as something felt in our bodies. (Krause, Loviska, Schmeißer 2015)

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 Fig12: A scene from ‘Third Life Project’ by Territorium KV (AT), Simula Research Lab (NO),
MIH Media Lab/Stellenbosch University (ZAF) and Embedded Systems/University of Duisburg-
Essen (DE)

Source:http://www.loviska.com/thirdlifeproject.html

3.4 Mobile Applications

A smart phone can become a multi-functional tool thanks to its mobile applications. It can serve
the user in a wide scale tools from GPS to a medical equipment. (Böhmer, Hecht, Schöning
Krüger, Bauer 2011) The influence of smartphones and mobile applications on our current lives
cannot be denied. According to the technology website Tech Crunch’s news from 2011, Apple
announced that 200 million iOS users have downloaded over 15 billion apps from its App Store,
including both iPad and iPhone apps. Mobile technology has pervaded our daily lives. It brought
an effective impact on art domain as well museums, art galleries, art organizations, theatre and
performance companies have started to create mobile applications in order to present content in
a playful way to engage the audience.
One of the artist groups who creates interactive art is ‘Blast Theory’. They place the audience
members at the center of their artworks to explore answers to some politic and social questions.
Blast Theory develops hybrid forms using interactive media through the web, live performance
and real- time video streaming. One of their work is ‘Karen’ which is basically a mobile

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application for life coaching. ‘Karen’ is a fictional life coach character with whom the user can
interact via a mobile application. The software and the application profile the user by asking
some personal questions in order to have better understanding of him. Karen gives some advices
based on the user’s answers. After one week, she starts to call the user one or twice a day. Within
time, Karen gets more and more curious and seems she has more information about the user that
actually she should not. At some point the user ends up in suspicion if she is spying the user. At
the end, the user gets irritated because of too much pressure from her and as the story finishes
the software offers you to show how much ‘Karen’ affected your decisions and behaviors. The
important point about the application is privacy and use of user data because it gathers and uses
highly personal data requiring the trust of users. Blast Theory aims to challenge the user about
how honest and open a user could be in an experience which demands very personal details.
They feel responsible to ask questions about contemporary world where the technology has built
a massive data about our lives. As Blast Theory mentions, “Karen is a system that gets to know
you. She/it uses data about your behavior -whether freely given or obtained by monitoring- to
give you an experience that is personalized, adaptive and intriguing.” In 2015 ‘Karen’
application won an award in the ‘Data’ category for the ‘Best of British Digital’.
Karen is not a live performing art. However if we consider the ideas of Josette Feral that she
wrote on his article called ‘Performance and Theatricality’ in 1982, we come up with the idea
that being theatrical is a situation where the audience look through an opening in the space, thus
creating what is theatrical. This theatrical opening whether at some point in our lives or within
the play demands both the view of the audience and the movement of the actor. Therefore,
theatricality does not only refer to theatre; the theatricality that occurs when the minimum
conditions are met, is a part of life. In other words, according to Féral, theatricality is a concept
beyond daily life and the boundaries of theatre (Sezgin, 2010).Thus Féral’s point of view on
theatricality allows us to claim that Karen has some theatrical elements as it gives an experience
of life in not a limited time period.

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 Fig13: A screenshot from ‘Karen’ application by Blast Theory
Source: https://www.blasttheory.co.uk/projects/karen/

3.5 Trans-media Storytelling

Storytelling is one of the oldest forms of art form as telling stories is one of the very instinctual
feature of human being. The origins of storytelling are based on visual arts like cave drawings.
However, within time, the way and the tools of storytelling have changed. After cave drawings,
storytelling shifted towards oral stories, then it formed into words and written stories took place.
Lastly, nowadays, advanced technologies shape our way of telling stories. In today’s world,
storytelling is influenced by television, cinema, photography, radio, mobile phones, digital
media and social media. Trans-media is one of the ways to tell stories in variety of digital ways.
Trans-media consultant Robert Prattern explains trans-media in his book “Getting Started in
Transmedia Storytelling” with two different definitions. One of them explains it in a traditional
way: “telling a story across multiple platforms, preferably allowing audience participation, such
that each successive platform heightens the audience enjoyment.” Then he finds this description
a little problematic because the traditional definition focuses on the how of trans-media
storytelling rather than why. He would prefer to focus on the consumption rather than the
production and he makes the last description of trans-media story telling as following:

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“taking the audience on an emotional journey that goes from moment to moment”.
As a technique, trans-media storytelling is based on cinema and gaming. In principle, it is not
directly related to the live performing arts. In fact it developed in the context of the convergence
of production and distribution equipment, where convergence is not conceived as the
replacement of the old media by the new. It is conceived as an interaction among the different
media or platforms where the audiences play a crucial role in the creation and circulation of
information. The main aim of trans-media storytelling is to connect all these contents through a
narration. And thus, it aims to create a common universe for all such contents. Although being at
the very beginning, the trans-media approach in the performing arts is still developing. Due to
the nature of the trans-media approach, the experience can combine traditional media (writing,
drawing, comics), new media, low-tech and high-tech tools, as well as public space, stage and
virtual space, stretch along time to create series’, be part of a joint curatorial project by the
cultural organization hosting it, etc. (Burgheim, 2016)
Star Wars with multiple films, books and TV series is a great example for franchise trans-media
consisting of multiple big pieces of media, like feature films or video games. This approach is
embraced by Hollywood with West Coast trans-media. However, there is another side of trans-
media called East Coast which tends to be more interactive and web-centered. It is suitable for
independent film, theatre and interactive art and mostly uses social media effectively. (Philips,
2012) For instance, ‘Mi minör’ is a Turkish play which premiered in 2012 and has great impact
of trans-media. It is a theatre play which conducts a global revolution with a worldwide audience
by using Ustream and Twitter with the hashtag of #miminor.
Mi minor is set in a fictional country called ‘Pinima’ which has a type of democracy where the
president decides on everything, and the musical note Mi is banned. However, during the play
the audience has the opportunity to choose the President’s democracy called ‘deMOCKracy’ or
support the Pianist’s rebellion against the system. The director of the play Meltem Arıkan
explains the theatre play in her interview for ‘Index on Censorship’ in 2014. In the play in order
to provide a ‘Role Playing Game (RPG)’ with the audience, the Pianist starts reporting all the
things happening in ‘Pinima’ through Twitter. In ‘Mi Minor’, an actual and social media oriented
‘RPG’ was integrated with the actual performance. It was written to be performed anywhere in
the world and be live streamed online through ‘Ustream’. The actual audience could stand with
the actors; they could use their smart phones during the play and tweet, take photos and share

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them online in order to show the world what was happening in the fictioal country ‘Pinima’
while at the same time the online audience would do the same by following everything from the
Pianist’s Ustream in English. This created another platform for the actual audience and the
online audience to interact with the hashtag #miminor on ‘Twitter’. All performances included
digital actors who would be ready in front of their computers as well as the actual actors to make
the play happen. On every level, the audience was made to make a choice as to which side they
were going to be in Mi Minor? A promotional website for ‘Pinima’ was developed to make an
introduction to the politics, geography and culture of this fantasy state. (Index of
Censorship,2014)
‘Mi minor’ is a play where trans-media is used highly linked to the content of the play. It is a
great example to show how trans-media can make the narrative of the play interactive.

Fig14: ‘Miminor’ by Meltem Arikan

Source: https://www.sondakika.com/haber/haber-mi-minor-de-sizin-de-bir-rolunuz-var-
4404491/

3.6 Problem Definition: Technology vs. Performing Arts

Throughout history, technology has changed the way humanity perceives the life. Every
technological invention is designed to make people’s lives easier, to make distances closer, to
lighten up what was darker and to turn difficulty into easiness. In other words, technology serves

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to meet the needs by minimizing the human effort. (Baudrillard,1981) The evolutionary effects
of technology on humankind are fast-growing. Any technology that was once surprisingly
fascinating, new and highly significant becomes usual, integrates into daily life and the times
when it was not existent are not even imaginable. A technology which falls into the category of
the normal and usual means that it has integrated into our lives at individual and social level and
established certain norms or habits without being noticed. In this regard, we can say that
technology changes the way people perceive the life.(Rutsky, 1999) In order to gain a better
understanding of the relation between technology and human, and to comprehend how this
relation affects today’s social and cultural situation, we should first understand what digital
revolution is.

‘The Digital Revolution or The Third Industrial Revolution’ means the conversion of analogue
and mechanical electronic technology into digital electronics. This shift has started in the late
50’s to the late 70’s; however, in terms of adoption and improvement of digital computers, it can
be said that digital revolution is still in its own progress and it continues to the present day.
(Schoenherr, 2004) ‘Digital Revolution’ has brought technological innovations such as mass
production, computer, cellular phone and the Internet to the humanity. All these technological
changes have affected society in various aspects. Marshall McLuhan describes the effect of
technological transformation on society as following; “The medium is the message. This is
merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium – that is, any extension
of ourselves – result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of
ourselves or by any new technology.” Starting with the invention of fire to the artificial
intelligence, every technological innovation has transformed the culture. As Marshall McLuhan
states in his book called ‘Understanding Media: The Extension of Man’, “any technology
gradually creates a totally new human environment” which also causes some shifts into the field
of performing arts.

According to the report of the ‘National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)’’s 2008 ‘Survey of
Public Participation in the Arts’, people who engage with art through media technologies attend
live performances or arts exhibits at two to three times the rate of non-media arts participants. In
2007-2008, the main usage of Internet was to view paintings, sculpture, and photography; to
read literature; to enjoy music, theater, or dance performances; and to post their own art. In order
to follow up certain kinds of art events, they used electronic media. Using any device (whether a

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cell phone or another handheld device, or just a radio or TV set) they viewed or listened to
programs on artists, artworks, etc.. Media technologies help connecting people with various
backgrounds to artworks that otherwise might be unavailable to them. This report demonstrates
that elder people, those living in suburbs or minorities (racial or ethnic) are more likely to
experience certain art forms through media than through live attendance. (NEA, 2008)

Another research is on the emotional engagement of the audience in cinema and theatre. ‘The
National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts in England (NESTA)’, carried out a
research on “how the creative industries can make innovations using digital technology, and
what the opportunities offered by innovation are”. One of the key findings was as following.
“Digital innovation has helped the National Theatre (NT) to reach new audiences. It can be a
source of new theatrical experiences: audiences familiar with theatre are keen to see it in a new
medium (i.e. transmitted live to cinema screen).” NESTA’s research shows that “It confirms the
centrality of 'live' for the audience experience - both in the theatre and in cinemas. Cinema
audiences report even higher levels of emotional engagement with the production than audiences
at the theatre. They also claim that they are now more likely to visit the theatre in the future,
suggesting that there may be positive spillovers on the wider sector.” (Beyond Live, 2010)

These research shows us how technology has shaped the contemporary situation of performing
arts. Currently, people are participating in live performing arts in front of their screens. In terms
of performing arts, “live” will always have its unique, fascinating effect on audience; however
performing arts should react to the changed perception of audience - with the digital revolution -
and acknowledge the techno-sociological situation in contemporary society.

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4. Project Analysis, Design and Implementation: ‘Please Do Not
Turn Off Your Mobile Phones’ a Mobile Application Prototype for
Interactive Theatre Plays

4.1 Research Methodology

We have followed a long process of analysis in order to provide a better direction for our
research project. Upon reviewing the literature related to Digital Performance, we continued the
analysis section by conducting a theoretical review on new media technologies deployed in
performing arts and by analyzing each technology with a specific group of performing art or a
work of an artist. We assessed new media technologies under 5 topics. These topics respectively
include Graphics and 3D Design, Artificial Performers, Virtual and Mixed Reality, Mobile
Applications, and finally Trans-Media. After we’ve made a basic state-of-art review of
performing arts, we’ve widened and improved our perception of digital performance thanks to
the strong support of examples from performing arts related to these technologies.
After that, in order to gain a better insight on the interaction between performing arts and new
media technologies in a sociological aspect and how the technology became a part of performing
arts inevitably, it is essential to interview academics, professionals and artists that can provide
deeper insights into the world of digital performance. To this end, we have conducted a
qualitative research. We interviewed with two academicians from the field of digital
performance who work in the creative area of performing arts and use different new media
technologies in their performances. Our other interviewees are two performance artists who are
working as partners in their performances.
One of our interviewee was Joris Weijdom who is a lecturer at several BA and MA courses at the
‘HKU University of the Arts, Utrecht’. His main research area is based on the intersection of
performance, media and technology. He designs theatrical experiences by using mixed reality
technology. He has founded ‘Media and Performance Laboratory (MAPLAB)’ and works as a
researcher at the ‘Research Centre Performative Processes’. We contacted him via e-mail and he
accepted to have an interview through Skype.
Our second interview was with Johannes Birringer who is the current lead of research and
postgraduate programme in ‘Theatre Department of Brunel University’. He is a choreographer,
media artist, and artistic director of ‘AlienNation Co.’. He published several articles and books

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on the theory of performance, science and technology. He incorporated wearable technologies
into performance with fashion designer Michèle Danjoux and these wearables as performance
instruments challenged new choreographic and improvisational ideas. Due to his busy
programme we contacted and have an interview him through e-mail.
The third interviewees are performance artists Otto Krause and Milan Loviska who are the
creators of ‘Third Life Project’ which we investigated for our analysis process under the title of
‘Mixed Reality’. As we already mentioned before in ‘Third Life Project’, they created a hybrid
world that provides a combination of virtual reality devices with optical location tracking, hand
gesture recognition and smart devices. This project enables visitors to experience a virtual world
using hand gestures in real world, combining virtual reality devices with optical location
tracking, hand gesture recognition and smart devices. (Krause, Loviska, Schmeißer 2015)
As we think open-end questions are more helpful to elicit different responses, we have prepared
semi-structured questions. This approach provided us with variety of ideas and views to improve
our perspective of digital performance. The interviews are structured around the following 5
questions; 4 of them are fixed for all the interviewees and 1 of them were specialized according
to the interviewee’s main field of interest. We aimed to delve deeper into the interviewees’
thoughts as artists and academics, and grasp a deeper understanding of their thoughts and
predictions on the future of performing arts. The questions are mostly geared towards a
sociological investigation of certain aspects of digital performance.

1) How do you consider the relationship between the performing arts and the audience after the
digital revolution? How do the performing arts adapt to this new environment?

2) How do you see the interaction between ‘the human’ and ‘the machine’’ (any kind of
computer technology which is related to the performing arts)? What are the boundaries and what
are the possible solutions for those boundaries?

For Joris Weijdom: 3) What are your main interests while making theatre processes with
Mixed Reality? In other words, what are your main researching fields?

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For Johannes Birringer: 3) What is the notion of “interactivity” for you? And what is the main
challenge while creating computational based interactivity in dance performances? What do you
address by incorporating wearable technologies into performance?
For Otto Krause and Milan Loviska: 3) What do you question by incorporating a real time
video game and mixed reality into performance? and what are your findings as creators of the
project? How did new media technologies affect your perspective on performance? How was the
development, user-testing and evaluation process of ‘Third Life Project’? What should be the
most considered criteria in a user-testing and evaluation phase of a digital performance?

4) If we consider the decline of public participation in the performing arts, how would we
convince the audience to see a live performing art in our contemporary digitized world? In this
context, would you see the technology as a rival of performing arts or as a collaborator?

5) What would you predict about the future of the performing arts in the new media context?

4.2 Research Findings

Investigating and analyzing current technologies in digital performances and having interviews
with professionals enables us to sum up our findings under 5 titles. The findings enlightened and
played an essential role to shape and develop our project.

4.2.1 Performing Arts after Digital Revolution

Our first interviewee Joris Weijdom considered digital revolution as a changed language of
everything. He highlighted that the biggest changing introduced by digital revolution to the
contemporary human life is the fact that everybody, everything is connected to each other by
digital language -0s and 1s-. For example one could use his/her voice to change the theatre lights
or people can have their voices being transferred over the internet. Thus, everything started to
talk in the same language and this generated a technology which is interchangeable and
connectable. Another thing that digital revolution brought us is ‘decentralization’ of the control.
In the context of performing arts, decentralization made everybody potentially a controller of
everything in a room, meaning that one can use his smartphone to change the theatre lights. In
relation to the audience, this changed language has a great impact, as well. And all related to

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these, many older assumptions, first of all the audience being a passive spectator, but also the
position of the spectator in the space and the opinions of what could be considered as a theatre
space have changed because of the digital revolution.
Our second interviewee Johannes Birringer remarked that “The performing arts have always
integrated new media technologies, instruments and equipment into production all through the
20th century (since the emergence of electricity, lighting, photography, and film), so digital
media and software, since the 80s and 90s, became naturally adapted.” He mentioned about the
technologies after 2000, and how technology have increased for the experimentation. In the field
of dance, choreographers including him explored new dance environments that invite the
audience to the space and action. And other type of performing arts incorporated film and digital
projections, cameras, live feeds, mediated scenography, interactional television and video
techniques, microphonic/sonic amplification and networked dimensions on the stage.
Our third interviewees Otto Krause and Milan Loviska put another interpretation on ‘Performing
Arts After Digital Revolution’. They viewed the technological change after the 80’s as ‘Digital
Consumer Revolution’ and this revolution led humans to discover a new level of individual
empowerment and freedom. In the context of performing arts, it is necessary to actively
approach to this new environment and “...tackle the challenges and expand the audience
experiences beyond such dichotomic perceptions and understanding of both the technologies and
the world around.”

4.2.2 The Human and the Machine

We asked about the interaction between ‘the human’ and ‘the machine’ and Joris Weijdom
reminded us that actually the machine is not necessarily interactive, in fact, it is reactive. The
human programs the machine to do something on the basis of an action, and the machine will
always respond in a particular way. Therefore, the machine enables the ‘performing human’ to
create a different relationship with the theatrical space, with the audience and with the other
performers because suddenly the body could be extended through media into the space or
physical bodies can be connected through technology, and even machines like robots can
become performative so there are many interactions or relationships can be possible that can be
consider performative and this situation is changing the performing arts.

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Otto Krause and Milan Loviska’s perspective of viewing the machine is a reflection or extended
version of the human and this idea brought us a new dimension. They said “technologies in their
simplest and most complex forms are extensions of the self-reflecting, communicating and
problem-solving beings that we are. Human-machine interaction is an interaction of a human
mind with (the manifestation of) another human’s mind, similar to reading a story written by
another human. When we see a machine, a code, a poem or a painting, we try to read it with our
own capabilities, appropriating and changing our own views. It is the level of our understanding
or imagination what sets the boundaries.”
About the challenging part of implementing ‘the machine’ to the performing arts Johannes
Birringer mentioned that the last few years since he started to include game design and Virtual
Reality in his choreography, it is not easily managed and rather complicated for a performance
setting. He said “If you use VR, you need to take time and prepare installations where audience
members can wear the devices one at a time”

4.2.3 What are the artists searching for?

Joris Weijdom started to have an interest in mixed reality at a very young age and he realized
that theatre is in fact a mixed reality and he thought in order to make artistically meaningful
experiences, he has to start to work with people involved in theatre. However, he noticed that
these people are not really experienced to work with technologic tools (how to work with the
engines, sensors etc.) Then, he decided to make a research on the basis of “How do I make
technology that could actually facilitate a theatrical or performative making process?” question.
He wanted to discover “How can technology be a part of improvisation and exploration of a
theatre making process?”
Johannes Birringer incorporates wearable technologies with performance and he works with the
fashion designer Michèle Danjoux. They are discovering how to look at movement in a new way
taking sounding wearables and also technical wearables (sculptures with mechanic elements:
sensor, microphones, speakers, wires). They integrate the performance encumbrances,
blockages, and obstacles. He says, “The mechanic instruments (wearables as performance
instruments challenge new choreographic and improvisational ideas and for us in our works the
dancers learnt to develop characters (wearable characters)”

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Otto Krause and Milan Loviska’s goal by integrating the advanced digital technologies into their
performance is to figure out how to devise such a performance in a way that is meaningful for a
live audience. And with experience, they found out that the interactions with the technologies in
any kind of the realities cannot be exclusive to performers onstage. “Mixed reality performances
afford us with extended and unique possibilities of audience immersion by granting the
spectators opportunities for interactions, participation and turning them that way into actors of
their own performance. One needs to directly and actively participate in it in order to understand
and appreciate it.”

5.2.4 Rival or Collaborator

The implications that we obtained from our interviewees allowed us to think in a more holistic
way rather than thinking separately. Otto Krause and Milan Loviska mention that “No media or
tools that allows us to keep the critical and reflective power of the performing arts alive can be
perceived as a rival. But we do need to be careful; not to be blinded by the spectacular and
magical show/event/entertainment monster, which technology and performance works
themselves for that matter easily can grow into. That is the true rival, and with seemingly ever
more limited funding possibilities for the independent performing arts field, it can have
degrading effects on both the artists and audiences as well.” At that point, we remembered Joris
Weijdom’s keynote speech called “Mixed Reality and the Theatre of the Future” for IETM. He
says, “Maybe you should not try to get all these technologies inside of your theatre, maybe you
should bring your theatre knowledge to other places that could actually mean that you are not
making theatre but you are bringing your knowledge to game makers and to virtual experience
builders and to all sources new media people and start telling stories in a different way.” So, this
leads us to the inference that technology and performing arts may adopt the ‘win-win’ concept so
that they can build strong relations and thus attract more audience.

5.2.5. Predictions about the Future of Performing Arts

Considering all the interviews we have, technology will always be a great impact on the
performing arts. However, as Otto Krause and Milan Loviska mentioned, it does not mean that
performing arts will disappear nor new media will replace it. Performing arts will keep changing
and transforming. As Johannes Birringer said, “Just as film and television change or evolve, so

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does the theatre, inevitably. Theatre will be lagging behind because it is an old institution, like
the concert hall (symphony, opera), but theatre also links up to music and popular culture so it
has to speak the same languages.”

5.2.6 Development, User-testing and Evaluation process of a Digital Performance

This section is created for our special question for the creators of Third Life Project, Otto Krause
and Milan Loviska to find out the essential steps for developing, user testing and evaluation
process of a digital performance as we aim to propose a prototype mobile application, where the
technology could be used for augmenting drama performances with an interactive approach.
Otto Krause and Milan Loviska: “The design iterations went loosely through the following
steps: concept and fundraising (2014), development, user - testing and evaluation (2015), with
the last two being repeated several times especially towards the end of the project. The project
was not really pressured by any other deadlines than the two mentioned above, having the
technology ready for the integration and testing in Oslo and the rest finalized for the premiere in
Vienna. The artistic ideas and the technology used were completely intertwined. One of the main
design principles was that we only include the technology that actually enables us to build
artistically relevant interactions and in the same time we exclude all those artistic decisions that
we cannot support with the technology. This was related to another important design principle
that we design for spectating and as such we treat all the considered spaces, actions, roles,
objects, events and interfaces as [potentially] performative.”
Upon assessment of the interviews, and grouping the findings with descriptions, the path of our
project became clearer. This project aims to propose a prototype application, where the
technology could be used for augmenting drama performances with an interactive approach.
Before concluding our analysis part, we picked 2 similar ideas which we can get inspiration.
4.3 Project Analysis

This project involves an interactive approach for theatre plays that can make the audience one
hundred percent responsible for the destiny of the play. In order to mediate between audience
and production, we designed a prototype mobile application that can be used as a voting device.
The application helps audiences manipulate the story of the play through voting. The design
approach is inspired by ‘’Choose Your Own Adventure’’ type of books which ask questions to

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the reader at turning points (peripeteia) in the story. The audience can view the questions with
silent notifications.

The questions are ‘this or that’ type of questions so that the audience can easily answer while
theatre play is continuing on the stage. Afterwards, the crew receives the voting results and
informs the actors who are wearing wireless earphones. Besides this feature, the application
provides some short descriptions of the play and the characters, as well. It also uses basic
Augmented Reality features in order to give some information about the venue and the seats.

French-American conceptual artist Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp states that “The viewer

completes the work of art’’. Particularly performing arts are already interactive in non-direct
ways. In the traditional theatre, there is a speechless agreement between the audience and the
production: the audience is expected to be just passive observers. However, interactive theatre
breaks the "fourth wall" that traditionally separates the production from the audience and creates
a new theatrical form. Thus, the interactive theatre offers the audience the chance to participate
actively in the play. The audience has the opportunity to be on the same playground with the
performers, denies the borders between the audience and the performers thus, theatre play builds
a different presentation with the impact of audience.

The project aims to offer an interactive experience to the audience by using their mobile phones
which has become a daily and ordinary device that lately everybody has. Another concern of the
project is to question the phenomenon of ‘checking a mobile phone during the performances’.
We aim to turn this issue into an advantage in theatres. Marshall McLuhan states that “As
technology advances, it reverses the characteristics of every situation again and again. The age
of automation is going to be the age of 'do it yourself.'” As the digital revolution brought us the
‘make your own choice’ notion on everything, we designed this mobile application to offer a
theatre play that can be changed according to the commands of the audience. In this way, the
audience becomes much more than a spectator; they are sort of a guide to the performers. The
fact that the audience has responsibility for the destiny of the play can cause strong
confrontations, for example in a case of a murder scene, it can be asked: ‘kill or run away’. If the
top-rated answer is ‘kill’, the audience will face their violent impulses. In other words, the
audience can decide the destiny of a play. This approach of the project can be used for
sociological researches, as well. It can be a direct way to make the participants face the result of

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their decisions. Since the system functions by voting, the audience are responsible from each
other, as well. Thus, they can be questioning many notions for instance, democracy, being a
community etc. In order to be able to explain the system of our mobile application, we prepared
high fidelity prototype of the application which is applied on a fictional production of William
Shakespeare’s one of the most known play Romeo and Juliet. The reason we have chosen
William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet play is the fact that it is a well-known play as well as
including sociologically problematic ethic notions worth to questioning such as murder, mores,
hostility etc.

4.3.1 Similar Ideas

Interactive theatre is not a new form of theatre. It has been used since the Ancient Greek but
after avant-garde movement its popularity has raised. Its engaging, extraordinary and
entertaining features make it more popular day by day. The very first feature of the interactive
theatre is to connect the audience and the production actively and physically. This interactivity
has levels; while some of the plays allow the audiences freedom to roam on the stage or even
play together with the performers, some of them just ask for guidance. The way how the
audience and the production is connected is different in each artwork, as well. In our project, we
picked a mobile application to bring the interactivity. We found two samples of work which
brings the interactivity in different ways.

Deviator/ Pvi Collective

One of the samples is pvi collective’s ‘Deviator’. Pvi collective is an experimental art company
with multi disciplinarian artists and producers based in Australia. They situate their art in public
spaces and work with the audience participatory. Their main method is based on game theory
and play in order to discover the social dynamics of the cities. One of their immersive, real-
world, outdoor game is Deviator which invites the players to transform the city into a
playground.

In the game, the mission is to seek out 15 audio instructions hidden in public spaces and play as
many of the games as possible where as a deviator you can explore the local area, play a series
of on-site games, interact with on-site performers, receive points and send text messages within
this application. deviator allows you to select a game from an on-screen map, locate it and scan a
strategically placed QR code to activate the game instructions. games are scored in terms of

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difficulty and range from activities. ,Deviator is inspired by the situationist’s psycho-geography
and ‘the coming insurrection’ an anonymous book written in 2007 which is part anti-materialist
manifesto and part manual for a modern day revolution. Deviator activates philosophies around
revolution, positioning ‘games’ as a potential trigger to alter the official narratives of place. The
promo video of ‘Deviator’ can be seen with the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNWvHXTlUCY

Fig14: The promo video of ‘Deviator’ by Pvi Collective

Last Call Interactive Movie

This theatrical interactive movie about a girl trapped by a psycho-killer in an abandoned
sanitarium where she must find a way to escape the maze-like facility and potentially help those
who are also trapped there. the audience members wishing to participate in the movie give their
cellphone numbers to the producers before the movie plays. During the movie, the girl tries
calling these numbers to get help and the audience, whose phone rings, has the possibility to
give her commands on what to do next. Girl answers using pre-recorded responses thanks to a
technology specifically designed for this. This leads to the impression that the audience is
actually in communication the girl, creating an illusion. She calls different numbers when a
decision is to be made. The trailer video of Last Call can be seen with the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRMNfwndtok

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 Fig15: The Trailer video of ‘Last Call’ by 13th Street

4.3.2 Target Group/ Users

Since the fate of the play is in the hands of the audience, the users/ audience must be willing to
collaborate with/ participate in the performers and open for new forms in the theatre. As we
mentioned in the Introduction part, the interactive approach of the project can bring a very
strong awareness to the audience. Because of this, they should be ready to take responsibility
and face with their own decisions and impulses as every vote is a step to involve the theatre play.

4.3.3 Technical and Functional Features

Fig16: Storyboard for the working principle of the application

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When the audience come to the theatre venue, they will connect to the theatre’s Wi-fi and
download the application using the QR code which is available in almost everywhere in the
venue. After downloading, audience can read some short descriptions about the play and the
characters via the application.

When the play starts, the audience should be aware that anytime they can receive a silent
notification for the questions. After answering this or that type of questions, the system
calculates the top rated option and the crew who are responsible for it inform the performers on
the stage through wireless communication system. Thus, the performers can change the play
according to the corresponding path which is rehearsed before like every possible path. Because,
each session can follow different paths from each other.

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5. Designing and Implementation
Our designing strategy is basically ‘simplicity’ which doesn’t mean that we have applied
minimal features. We wanted to keep our design as simple as possible but we considered to
create a character and personality as well. (Colborne, 2010)

5.1 The Application

Our mobile application prototype can be seen via the link below.
https://zsbpc5.axshare.com

Home Page: The home page is where the user comes across with the application for the first
time. In order to captivate the user, a home page should be plain and effective. The background
of our home page has the poster of our fictional ‘Romeo and Juliet’ production and seven
buttons located namely, ‘The Play’, ‘The Venue’, ‘The Characters’, ‘The Author’, ‘How Does It
Work?’, ‘Where is My Seat?’ and ‘You Have 1 New Notification’ and each of them provides
different functionality to the user.

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 Fig17: Screenshot of the ‘Home Page’

The Play: The Play section includes information about the play in a text form and a sub-
segment which is called ‘Gallery’ where the photos of the play can be displayed.

Fig18:Screenshot of the ‘The Play’ Fig19:Screenshot of the ‘TheGallery’

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The Venue: This section includes some visuals from the fictional theatre hall and th bar of the
venue. At the same time we give some information about the venue, such as the history of the
theatre, the capacity, technical features, opening hours etc. Since we are working on a mobile
application, we do not have a big space to fill because of economic considerations. For this
reason, ‘’ Click for More Information” button can be seen; this button provides us some textual
information on the pictures.

Fig20: Screenshot of ‘The Venue’

The Characters: When the user clicks on the characters option, he can display the two families
of Romeo and Juliet play. We preferred to organize the characters in a family tree form in order
to provide a better clarification. In each family’s button, the user can see the members of the
family and the related characters.

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Fig21: Screenshot of‘ The Characters’ Fig22: Screenshot of ‘The Author’

The Author: This button allows the user to have some information about William Shakespeare.

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 Where Is My Seat?: This section serves as a box keeper.
As the audience enter their ticket numbers and place the
camera of their mobile phones to the physical seating plan,
the seats that they are supposed to occupy will blink. Since
high-fidelity mock ups cannot meet with the Augmented
Reality features, we placed a seating plan figure in order to
refer the camera.

How Does It Work?: This section works as a site map and

guides the user through the application. It explains the
features of the application in textual form.

Fig23: Screenshot from ‘Where is My Seat?’

5.2 ‘You Have 1 New Notification’ and the Questions

‘You Have 1 New Notification’ section is designed to work as a demo version of the application.
As we mentioned before, while the theatre play continues on the stage the application is
supposed to send some silent notifications in the accurate points. The reason why we named this
section ‘You Have 1 New Notification’ is the fact that in high fidelity prototyping, we cannot
send notifications to the user and also although this application is designed for a theatre play, we
are aware of the fact that the application needs to be tested by people for evaluation process. For
this reason, we created a demo for testing where the video clips from Romeo and Juliet movie
can be found. The questions which are supposed to be sent with silent notifications in the
original idea are connected to the related scene’s videos. In other words, we used video clips
from Romeo and Juliet movie instead of theatre play.

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 Fig24: Screenshot of ‘You Have 1 New Notification’

We applied the questions on Romeo and Juliet’s 3rd Act of 1st Scene just to show our idea as an
example. We prepared three questions and tried to keep them as short as possible because in the
original idea the crew will need the top rated answer immediately in order to transmit it to the
performers. Below, the questions with two answer options can be seen. However, in the demo
version people can experience the application through Romeo and Juliet movie, because of this
reason, they can pick the answer which is meant to be in the original movie version. We can
provide just one answer’s result.

Questions
Romeo and Juliet Act 3, Scene 1

The summary of the scene

Benvolio and Mercutio walk in the streets of Verona. Suddenly, Tybalt enters with a group of
cronies. He approaches and asks to speak with Benvolio or Mercutio. Mercutio gets annoyed and
provokes Tybalt. Romeo enters. Tybalt brings his attention to Romeo and calls him a villain.

63
However, Romeo refuses to be angered by Tybalt’s provocation. Tybalt commands Romeo to
draw his sword but Romeo says that he has a good reason to love him and does not want to fight
him. In that moment Mercutio draws his sword and says that if Romeo will not fight Tybalt, he
will. Romeo warns Mercutio to stop the fight.

1. Question

STOP or FIGHT

We consider, the answer is FIGHT

Mercutio and Tybalt begin to fight. Romeo

attempts to break up the fight, throws himself in
front of the combatants. Tybalt stabs Mercutio
under Romeo’s arm, and as Mercutio falls, Tybalt
and his men hurry away. Mercutio dies.

Fig25:Storyboard for the 1st Question

2. Question

REVENGE or PEACE

We consider, the answer is REVENGE

Enraged, Romeo declares that his love for Juliet

has made him effeminate, and that he should have
fought Tybalt in Mercutio’s place. When Tybalt,
still angry, storms back onto the scene, Romeo
draws his sword. They fight.
Fig26: Storyboard for the 2nd Question

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3. Question
Should Benvolio,

BREAK UP THE FIGHT or LET THEM

FIGHT

We consider, the answer is LET THEM FIGHT

Romeo kills Tybalt. Benvolio urges Romeo to run

away because a group of citizens outraged at the
recurring street fights is approaching. Romeo, Fig27: Storyboard for the 3rd Question
shocked at what has happened.

5.3 Creating High Fidelity Prototypes in Axure RP

Axure RP is a user-friendly prototyping application, specification and documentation tool which
can be displayed on the web both on mobile devices and on desktop. The reason why it is
preferable is that it is quick to make highly interactive prototypes. With Axure RP; widgets can
be used, interactions can be set, text fields, check boxes and dropdowns can be added, pages and
widgets can be styled, and adaptive pages can be built. We chose Axure RP to make high fidelity
prototypes because it is user friendly and has some important features for creating interactive
mock-ups such as widgets, masters, inline frame, form controls. It has drag and drop elements
and the user can easily create adaptive views, dynamic contents, animations and conditional
flows. Another reason why we have chosen Axure RP is that the project is easy to share.
Through the link sharing, the others can view the project in a browser both on mobile devices or
computer. Creating high fidelity prototypes means to offer a rich user experience, and in order to
achieve this, we have established some norms like; Scenarios: The prototype needs to simulate
the possible paths a user would have on any given screen and the system's appropriate responses
of the actions that the user is taking.

65
Multiple screen sizes: We must consider screen sizes, for example, small for smartphones,
medium for tablets, large for desktops, and extra-large for those large, high-definition screens.
The user experience is influenced by the size of the screen. At that point, one of the other
significant reason for us to choose Axure RP was the feature of ‘Adaptive Views’. This feature
allows the user to define breakpoints where there is a need to switch the page to a different style
or layout based on the size of the screen. Adaptive views allowed us to create specialized
instances of the wireframes for different screen sizes without any problem. We adapted our
screen size appropriate to Samsung Galaxy S5.
Prototyping in-page data refresh: While back in the eighties, a prevalent workflow for a given
task in client-server software involved hopping from one window to another and in the nineties,
the common web navigation was hyperlinking from one page to another, facilitating a similar
goal. These days, the need to negotiate multiple windows has been greatly diminished with
asynchronous in-page data updates, but the complexities of prototyping in-page data refresh
have increased.
Scalability and future scope: The prototype, which often begins as a full-fledged visionary
concept, needs to be able to support graceful degradation or fall back on less-ambitious
capabilities of the present and scale in the future.
Exception handling: As the name suggest, this is about adjusting the path according to the
exceptions, which is one of the most challenging aspect of the prototypes. (Schwartz, Srail 2014)

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6. Evaluation
Evaluation part is important to adopt a mobile application according to the expectations of the
user. In order to provide the ideal experience, we determined a strategy to have more progress.
The strategy that we followed while evaluating our application looks like the following image.

Fig28: ‘Basics of User Experience’ Design by INTERACTION DESIGN FOUNDATION

Source: https://www.interaction-design.org/

6.1 Evaluation Criteria

There are many studies and suggestions on evaluating the quality of a software. All of them
address to different perspectives to measure the quality. For instance, Boehm mostly focuses on
code measurements like portability, reliability, efficiency, testability, and modifiability.
McCabe’s cyclomatic complexity measure method provides a better analysis of quality.
However, we will consider the evaluation criteria from the perspective of the user (Cohill ,
Gilfoil , Pilitsis 1986)
Molich and Nielsen suggest nine usability heuristics in their “Heuristic Evaluation of User
Interfaces, 1990” essay. The rules are as below.

1. Simple and natural dialogue

2. Speak the user’s language

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3. Minimize user memory load
4. Be consistent
5. Provide feedback
6. Provide clearly marked exits
7. Provide shortcuts
8. Good error messages
9. Prevent errors (Molich,Nielsen 1990)

And Whitney Quesenberry who is the UX and Usability Expert and former President of the
Usability Professional’s Association suggests five criteria that a product should meet so as to be
usable

1. Effectiveness
2. Efficiency
3. Engagement
4. Error Tolerance
5. Ease of Learning (Interaction Design Foundation, 2002)

Overall, after researching for appropriate evaluation criteria, we decided to evaluate our mobile
application in terms of the following matters.

1. Usability
2. Functionality
3. Learn-ability
4. Credibility
5. Appearance

1. Usability
Basically, usability is all about learn-ability and easiness of a service or a product. In the sense of
testing a mobile application, it is vital to provide an efficient, effective and satisfying experience.

68
We prepared 3 items to evaluate our users’ level of agreement concerning usability of our
product.

1. This application is easy to use.

2. It is easy to navigate within the application.
3. I enjoy using the application.

2. Functionality
The functionality is about the interactivity between the user and the application. In other words,
the relationship between the application and the user. We prepared 2 items for functionality part
of the user evaluation.

1. I am able to find what I need in this application.

2. The features of the application are functional.

3. Learn-ability
A mobile application or a software product should be capable of providing an easy structure to
the user to learn how to use it. It is known that many of the users avoid using complex
applications. The item concerned is as we mention below.

1. The structure of the application is easy to learn.

4. Credibility
Credibility measures believability and the quality of the information of a mobile application may
include. It is also about trust, value and comfort but these aspects are valid for shopping
websites/ applications or the websites/ applications which are gathering e-mails to build a
subscriber base. The item that we will measure the level of agreement of users is;

1. The information on this website is valuable.

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5. Appearance
A mobile application must be appealing and professional as it is a reflection of the concerned
product or the service. If a mobile application’s visuality is satisfying, then it gives a positive
impression. For the measurement of the appearance of our mobile application, we took these
items into consideration.

1. I found the application attractive.

2. The application has a clean and simple presentation.

6.2 Qualitative Evaluation and Results

1. Usability

70
2.Functionality

71
3.Learnability

72
4.Credibility

5.Appearance

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While evaluating our application, we focused on finding participants to fit our target audience.
We posted the questionnaire on a couple of theatre school’s Facebook pages so that we could
target young people who are familiar to use new media technologies and also open to new forms
in art.
We evaluated our mobile application under these titles:

1. Usability
2. Functionality
3. Learn-ability
4. Credibility
5. Appearance

Overall, according to the answers, we are viewing a fair sum of positive results. If we investigate
all the titles; in terms of usability, the users’ level of agreement result allows us to say “This
application is easy to use.” with 51.2% Agree and 44.2% Strongly Agree answers while we can
say “It is easy to navigate with in the application” and “I enjoy using the application.” with the
rates for ‘Agree’ and ‘Strongly Agree’ which are not under 40 %.
When it comes to Functionality, “The features of the application are functional’’ rated 56.1% for
‘Strongly Agree’ while “I am able to find what I need in this application” rated 48.8% for

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‘Agree’. In Learnability section we are observing that 53.8% of users voted for “The structure of
the application is easy to learn” with the level of ‘Strongly Agree’ when the Credibility is
successful with 48.6% of ‘Agree’ option. Finally, the answers about the appearance part shows
us 65.9% of the users strongly agree that the application has a clean and simple presentation
while 42.5 % of them found the application attractive.

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7. Conclusions
7.1 Summary & Conclusion
This thesis argues that the performing arts must keep up with the changing techno-cultural
situation and that technological developments must be closely followed and embraced for this.
In mediatized culture the material body and its subjectivity are enlarged and reconfigured via
technology and televisual is dominating human’s manners of thought, communication and
culture. (Causey, 2006) We are living in such an era where modern person can post their own
content through social media and easily access any information at any time and thus the concept
of watching and witnessing is based on media such as TV or Internet - far from the concept of
‘live’- in order to ensure sustainability of the most important, unique and inseparable part of
performing arts, that is to say ‘liveness’, performing arts should speak the same language with
the era and provide support with acknowledgment. In order to provide an immersive theatre
experience based on this background idea, our thesis integrates a mobile application developed
for smart phones into a fictional theatre play by making use of the integrated and symbiotic
relation of modern human with smart phones. In practice, the aim is to enable audience to guide
the theatre play using this application.
The first goal of our thesis, as specified above, is to use a modern day technology within
performing arts in an attempt to create an immersive approach. The reason why we preferred
theatre among other performing art, as Johannes Birringer mentioned in our interview, is that
“...performance will of course use current techniques and technologies. Just as film and
television change or evolve, so does the theatre, inevitably. Theatre will be lagging behind
because it is an old institution, like the concert hall (symphony, opera), but theatre also links up
to music and popular culture so it has to speak the same languages.” Theatre has always been in
a very close relationship with its traditions and it is a very powerful medium to bring awareness
to the society. Also theatre is considered to be a performing art in which, most of the time, the
audience is just silent witnesses. (Brown,1995) We found the idea of audience being guiders to
the production very exciting. Contemporary techno-culture investigations we conducted later
showed us that the most important factor affecting the daily life of modern people is smart
phones. For this reason, the use of a smart phone in a classical theatre production, like ‘Romeo
and Juliet’, would symbolically create a space where human meets with the communication

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technologies developed so far. This led us to the idea of developing a mobile application
prototype.
The literature review process we conducted and the analysis of today’s digital performances
played a major role in shaping the last form of our idea and build concrete background
knowledge. The concept of recording knowledge which started with the invention of
photography brought discussions on ‘liveness’ together.(Dixon,2007) This creates the dichotomy
of ‘Technology vs. Art’. Reading literature defenses on both ideas allowed us to develop a more
holistic approach to this concept as our aim was already to create an environment where both
concepts could support each other. For this, we assessed the use of new media technologies in
performing arts in order to see how this environment is created with new media technologies,
and which applications are to be used. And in order to achieve this, we scanned the fields of
dance, theatre and performance arts. During our analyses, first we tried to make a rough
definition of certain digital performance technologies (Graphics, 3D Design, Artificial
Performers, Virtual and Mixed Reality, Mobile Applications, Trans-media Storytelling), and then
we attentively assessed why and how these technologies are used in performing arts.
Upon assessment of the modern technologies, our findings from the interviews we conducted
provided a rather good support for the development of our mobile application prototype. Our
inferences of these findings served as a guide to what we will do and what we should consider
while designing the prototype.
Thanks to this iceberg-like process, we were finally prepared to design our mobile application
prototype. With the evolution of techno-culture, contemporary society’s perspective on
performing arts and satisfaction criteria evolved, therefore being aware of the impact of
technology on the society will provide a better understanding on the evolution of performing
arts.

7.2 Thesis Novelty and Contribution

Transformed technology was our first motivation to do this research and the research showed us
new media technologies may provide immersive, unique, trans formative, creative possibilities
in the performing arts. New media technologies can even be partners to the performing arts
makers in the case of a creative process of a performing art, rather than just a tool
(Krause,Loviska 2018) Specifically, the use of a mobile application in a theatre play showed us

77
that the combination of different disciplines can work in a live interactive theatre experience.
New media technologies and theatre can be a very powerful tool to provide interesting,
immersive theatre experiences.
Our thesis suggests that technology does not bring an end to the live arts; rather it proposes that
when necessary conditions are met and rational and creative processes are implemented, the
combination of technology and performing arts may create new forms of arts, and that any form
of art speaking the language of the digital world may attract more audience. The actual rival of
performing arts is not creating new live forms through design of new scenography and making
new combinations out of interdisciplinary media, but rather not being aware of the fact that
technology also weakens the imagination, makes everything easy and challenges the human
effort. The mobile application we developed shows that not seeing technology and performing
arts as rivals but creating new forms where technology and performing arts can nurture each
other would provide advantages to both fields.
Performing arts can attract the attention of audience as long as they maintain a good
communication with the outer world and modern society. Our study regards technology as an
extension of the outer world and society, and shows this idea should be comprehended by
performing arts, as well.

7.3 Further Work

The first further work to conduct for this project may be to design the future of the application
and test it within a theatre play. We designed our application for a fictional production of
‘Romeo and Juliet’ and we used the clips cut from Romeo and Juliet movie in order to the test
the voting functionality on people. However, the same principle may be applied to other
productions. Likewise, new social media accounts may be created for a theatre play with trans-
media storytelling approach in order to enable the audience to share posts during the play. The
play may be broadcasted on a web site and mobile application via live video stream. In this way,
the play may show up on various social media accounts and media, and thus extend its presence.
Another further work can be achieved through changes in the voting technique. We used ‘this or
that’ type of questions in our research; however in another theatre play, different options may be
provided by using symbolic icons only. It is possible to use different icons to represent two
emotions; for example a sword and an international symbol of peace could be used for the

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question of ‘peace or war’. This will ensure not only a symbiotic perspective to the play, but it
will also make the voting easier for the user.
This thesis provides a focused approach to how a mobile application can be integrated into a
theatre play. Further research should be exploring this endless technology tools and find creative
ways to implement them into other performing arts.

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A Conversation with Meltem Arikan, Turkish playwright and author by Julia Farrington 07 Jan
2014
https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2014/01/conversation-with-meltem-arikan//

Digital Drama: The technology transforming theatre By Dougal Shaw

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-17079364/

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Seinandan Theatre Company, Osaka University Robot Theatre Project review by Alexis Soloski
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/522851/

'Savanna: A Possible Landscape', by Amit Drori and Dover & Cederbaum by Malaika Byng
https://www.wallpaper.com/design/savanna-a-possible-landscape-by-amit-drori-and-dover-
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The University Theatre of the University of Kansas presents The Adding Machine: A Virtual
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http://www2.ku.edu/~ievr/machine/

The Guardian, How we made experiential life-coaching app, Karen

https://www.theguardian.com/culture-professionals-network/2015/aug/14/how-we-made-life-
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Miminor Revolutionizes Theatre Skip Conover 16 February 2013

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