Thesis
Spectacle or Storytelling?
Yet are all these developments mere spectacle? Aristotle has denigrated spectacle as being the least artistic of the poetic arts14. But it is also true that much of the power of theater comes from its ability to make people seem larger than life. If words alone held the key to creating a dramatic experience, then the audience could be asked to simply read the play.
As Joachim Fiebach says "Theater is a type of social communication whose specificity is, first, the ostentatious display of audiovisual movements." Improvisational Theater may be one of the most minimalist of theater disciplines, since it needs only two or more actors and can be played anywhere. Yet even Viola Spolin, the modern progenitor of Improvisational Theater has advocated for the use of technical effects in Improv in order to heighten the sensitivity of the actor.15
Bertolt Brecht used what he called the "alienation effect" in order to keep the audience at a distance by reminding them of the artificial theater experience. This was accomplished by stage effects such as captions or illustrations projected onstage and by exposing the inner workings of the stage apparatus. "It's more important nowadays for the set to tell the spectator he's in a theatre than to tell him he's in, say, Aulis1. The theatre must acquire qua theatre the same fascinating reality as a sporting arena during a boxing match. The best thing is to show the machinery, the ropes and the flies."16 In my project, I have not attempted to hide the apparatus.
I would argue that as new technologies emerge, we need to make use of technical developments in theater order to counteract the power that new media holds over us. There is a way that media hypnotizes us, no matter how aware we are of that power. Seeing someone on a screen gives life to that person in a way that transcends his or her own human life force. Matthew Causey, in his article "The Screen Test of the Double: The Uncanny Performer in the Space of Technology," describes the phenomenon of watching a large video screen of a performer at a concert. "Does that mean that it is the split video image sourcing from a live feed that re-establishes the status of the real? Yes, the video image is more real than the live actor."17
As Kirby Malone notes: "many artists resolve to learn new media and technologies, in part, so that they might use the machines to critique the machines. The result is a hybrid approach, part Luddite, part technophile."18 While I make use of technology, the goals of this project are in opposition to what has been called "immersive" media. The audience is welcomed into the story that's being told, but there is no attempt to hide the fact that the performers are just actors moving around in front of a flat screen. The reality is not virtual. The revolution will not be televised.
Interactivity and Performance
Chris Crawford, in his book Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling goes to considerable lengths to discover how to use technology for interactive storytelling. But as he himself says "Stories are about people, not things."19 Storytelling is what people do. It might be possible to create an artificial activity that resembles storytelling, but unless it involves the transmission of a narrative from one human being to another it is not storytelling. We should leave storytelling to ourselves. Human beings are good storytellers. Let the computer do what it does well, namely quickly storing and retrieving information.
1 Aulis is the location where the Greek fleet gathered under the leadership of Agamemnon in order to take Troy. [back]
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Copyright Henry Harvey 2006.