Abstract

Since 2015, 360-degree video (360V) and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies have become more affordable and accessible to independent artists. Therefore, a body of interdisciplinary performance practices that utilise these technologies has emerged. There is limited academic writing about these newer practices within performance studies and minimal audience data available in response to such works. This research considers the opportunities and challenges for capturing and sharing performance work using these mediums and investigates how these new types of performance practices affect audience experience. My thesis explores the potential of these new technologies to extend audience experiences through mixed reality (MR) practices that integrate 360V and VR technologies into live work. It also highlights the potential of new technologies such as volumetric capture (VolCap) for capturing live dance performances for fully virtual VR artworks and considers the ways that practitioner approaches may shift when working with such technologies. I have created a body of artistic works that experiment with 360V and VolCap and tested these with audiences. I draw together theoretical concepts related to embodied spectatorship from several fields including dance, VR and film to analyse the works created. This aims to build understanding and find a vocabulary for articulating the experiential effects of these practices on audiences when encountering these new environments. My experiments offer new creative approaches and strategies for working with 360V and VolCap technologies within performance which are useful to future practitioners and industry. My findings also discovered that when combined with theatrical and dance approaches, these new technologies can have potent effects, providing audiences new performance experiences. The audience data gathered and analysed within this study elucidate the unique relationships and novel digital intimacies that were cultivated between performer and participants within both the MRP and VR works discussed in chapters four to six. In chapter six, this analysis leads towards new understandings of embodiment through disembodiment towards a notion I term ethereal embodiment. Overall, this thesis presents an innovative body of artefacts and, alongside the written exegesis, contributes original knowledge to the field of performance and technology and related practices and industry.