Design fiction for mixed-reality performances

Designing for mixed-reality performances is challenging both in terms of technology design, and in terms of understanding the interplay between technology, narration, and (the outcomes of) audience interactions. This complexity also stems from the variety of roles in the creative team often entailing technology designers, artists, directors, producers, set-designers and performers. In this multidisciplinary, one-day workshop, we seek to bring together HCI scholars, designers, artists, and curators to explore the potential provided by Design Fiction as a method to generate ideas for Mixed-Reality Performance (MRP) through various archetypes including scripts, programs, and posters. By drawing attention to novel interactive technologies, such as bio-sensors and environmental IoT, we seek to generate design fiction scenarios capturing the aesthetic and interactive potential for mixed-reality performances, as well as the challenges to gain access to audience members’ data – i.e. physiological states, daily routines, conversations, etc

Embodied Imagination: An Exploration of Participatory Performance and Interactive Technology to Support Stroke Recovery

Life after a stroke leads to the challenge of adjusting to new possibilities and fosters an increased risk of social isolation and depression. Re-building personal narratives and creating new community networks are key to conceiving an identity beyond the stroke. In this context, participatory performance provides methods for exploring physical and social identities, imagining new ways of being. Meanwhile, digital technology offers tools to help envision these possibilities. A participatory performance workshop supported by real-time motion capture technology has been redesigned in collaboration with the performance company Split Britches. The Green Screening workshop’s objective is to help stroke survivors imagine new physical and social possibilities by enacting fantasies of things they have always wanted to do. Participants construct storylines supported by a custom-built interactive scenography. Movement data is collected and transformed into real-time visualisations to progressively build fantasy narratives enacted with and for other participants. Three research studies conducted with stroke support groups around England analysed progressive iterations of the Green Screening workshop. The first study focused on the project's feasibility in aiding social support. The second study explored embodied imagination and social collaboration in enacted storylines. Finally, the third study analysed communication as a means of recovery and further potential to foster social collaboration. Findings are based on qualitative analysis of the participants' experience. Results reveal that the narrative process and visualisations encouraged a rich repertoire of improvised movements, and the communal aspect of the process was found especially important in achieving these results. This work argues that this framework can simultaneously bring a rich, prospective and political understanding of people’s lived experience to the design space in HCI and provide community stroke support

Catching feelings: Measurement of Theatre Audience Emotional Response Through Performance

Attendance at live theatre is declining. Although emotional experiences are a primary motivator for people to attend theatre, many leave disappointed, never to return. Catching feelings, therefore, is core to successful theatre business models. Yet, there is a surprising lack of research investigating audiences’ emotional experiences while they are watching a play. This thesis explores the complex historical partnership between theatre and emotion, and suggests that measurement of physiological response using wearable biometric equipment is a viable tool for measuring audience emotional response during a performance. Literature on measuring emotion in theatre is reviewed and categorized into four core areas. A framework for measuring physiological responses to theatre performances is proposed. A mixed-methods experiment measuring the physiological responses of nine audience members attending a production of Lauren Gunderson’s play "I and You" at London's Hampstead Theatre is analysed and the playwright is interviewed on her expectations of the audiences’ emotional response. The findings indicate that participant physiological arousal significantly increased at the surprise climax of the play as compared to two other sections of the play. Participants reported feeling, similarly, emotions of surprise and sadness. This suggests that audience emotional responses correlate to plot points with expected emotional response. Additionally, the use of measurement equipment is well tolerated during a performance. Based on this, a new model for rating the impact and capacity needs of emotional engagement activities is suggested, providing a novel tool for theatre companies to influence the behaviour of new and returning attendees, generate additional revenue, and connect audiences and theatrical experiences in enhanced, emotionally meaningful ways