Remember live arts? Theatre, concerts, exhibitions, cinema.
Walking into a venue, the outside world disappears... the buzz, the liveness, being one with the audience.
My talk today is about how we can bring some of these experiences to people's homes
... because of situations like the current pandemic, obviously. But not only.
Many people don't get to experience live arts for various reasons like money, time, location, living with a disability.
My name is Ana Levordashka. I am a psychologist and
I work on a project called the Bristol & Bath Creative R&D Cluster
where academics and creative practitioners work together to
understand how emerging technology can be used in the arts.
We planned to work with live audiences on location
but due to the pandemic, we had to conduct our research remotely
We had to solve some very practical challenges. And learned important lessons, which I will share with you.
Our design recommendations are based on 3 projects:
The first project was an audience survey for the Bristol Arts Channel
Bristol Arts Channel was a unique and fantastic initiative—
Bristol's major cultural organisations got together at the start of the first national lockdown in England
to think about how to bring live arts to people's homes
how to create a sense of an liveness and togetherness when they were needed the most
The second project was research into of audience behaviour using advanced measurement
it was meant to be on location (theatres), but had to be adapted.
The third project—a multi-sensory theatre play produced by one of our co-authors--Ellie Chadwick.
The play was going to be staged in Bristol Old Vic theatre and Ellie was planning to gather audience data on location
but had to rethink the experience for digital delivery.
The recommendations I am about to show you are based on desk research and discussions—not something we have formally tested.
With this disclaimer, here is what we found:
A major question in streaming is— How to get people to sense, to feel, that they are part of an audience?
Synchronous viewing is nothing new— we can broadcast content so that people join at the same time.
But does this automatically give us ~an audience~?
As psychologists, we are ask what's at the core of shared experiences and how to bring that across
In the paper we give one example: Capturing and visaulsing reactions and synchrony in a way that doesn't break immersion.
There would be other ways, too. Something to think about. And test.
Another thing we felt was missing from existing solutions are effective and engaging way to gather data.
A lot can be implemented by design, e.g., integrating audience reactions into performances and recording them
Another effective way to gather data is to embed follow-up questions.
Imagine event participants receiving a couple of meaningful questions while they are still in the same emotional and cognitive space
Which leads me to our third recommendation: A sense of place.
Existing streaming technologies don't create a sense of place the way physical venues naturally do
Even something as simple as a virtual lobby or waiting room can help frame experiences...
make them more immersive and ensure adequate ending...
Especially with immersive experiences, it's important to ensure that people "land back into reality" in a way that is comfortable and psychologically safe
Speaking of safety and comfort... Our final recommendation is about ethics and inclusivity
I have talked about capturing and visualising behaviour, gathering data
doing so in an ethical, inclusive way is absolutely essential.
Before closing, I would like to note again that these recommendations are largely based on desk research and discussions. We do still need empirical evidence to test their effectiveness.
We are conducting some of this research, please do connect and stay in touch.
Thank you for your attention. I look forward to our discussion.