NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Ototheatre
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NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Ototheatre: Learning to Listen and Perform in Sonically Augmented Spaces A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Field of Theatre and Drama By Lauren R. Beck EVANSTON, ILLINOIS December 2017 2 © Copyright by Lauren R. Beck 2017 All Rights Reserved 3 Abstract Ototheatre: Learning to Listen and Perform in Sonically Augmented Spaces Lauren R. Beck This dissertation explores a form of performance I call “ototheatre,” which is a mobile and participatory audience experience executed with portable sound technology. Ototheatre is an emergent artistic form that sits at a convergence of contemporary technologies and audience consumption habits. Case studies, including smartphone applications and new theatrical works incorporating novel uses of sound technology, reveal the antecedents and characteristics of this form of theatre. I explore the methods by which these works create intimate, interactive theatrical experiences that extend modes of audience experience. Podcasts are a new media practice that have multiple theatrical antecedents and ototheatrical potential. I analyze a particularly theatrical podcast, choreographer Hofesh Shechter’s Everyday Moments, to show new possibilities for individual modes of performance scripted by podcast artists for solo listening. I trace a genealogy that includes the théâtrophone, radio drama, and the downloadable podcast to demonstrate how the recorded voice has long been creating remote theatrical experiences for audiences through the use of mediatized sound technology. While radio has been called a “theatre of the mind,” I argue that podcasts can create an intimate, post-humanistic theatre of the body. I examine artistic sound works that are related to the audio tour to explore ways of mapping space with sound. The case studies I have chosen attempt to help participants to see hidden social, historical, or spatial layers of an unfamiliar site. My research explores how audio walks allow users to create mental maps of memory, history, and experience that engage the user 4 with a place. I argue that sound augments the mapped space for listeners, transporting them into the space rather than placing them outside as observers. I analyze two theatrical audio “tours.” The first, As If It Were the Last Time by Circumstance, pulls the participant into the experience of a busy New York street. The second, Sights by Tricksterp, guides participants around the city of Bern to telephone booths where they listen to site-responsive stories from people who are blind. I then conduct an analysis of my own sound art project, a sonic map of London that uses binaural recordings to guide listeners through my memories of discovering London by foot and underground train in order to push the experience of the audio tour to a virtual realm. I connect all three case studies by focusing on the power of sound technology to help participants create affective maps of urban spaces. An audio drama/fitness application called Zombies, Run! uses mobile sound technologies to create embodied role play for audiences. In a survey of Zombies, Run! fans, I found that users shifted their interpretations of the work based on how they wished to engage with it, showing how participants in sound-based theatre individualize their experiences as audience members based on how they synthesize prior knowledge of related media forms. I posit a new mode of theatre performance made possible through a combination of open and serial narrative, embodied and individualized engagement through sound, and easily distributed fan content through internet forums. I connect the fields of sound studies to theatre studies, and I outline the individual, embodied, and interactive ways that theatre can engage audiences through sound-based technologies. 5 Acknowledgments It is with great humility that I acknowledge the role that each of the following people played in the development of this project and of me as a scholar. Without their support and encouragement, I would not have been able to complete this project, nor might I have attempted it. My deepest thanks go to my advisor, Tracy C. Davis. She found a way to bring out qualities I didn’t know I had, as she seems to do with all her students. She is patient and calming, and she helped me to clarify what I was thinking when I couldn’t find the words. She has the gift of guiding the way toward a whole project out of the loose collection of ideas that a graduate student begins with. She was dedicated as an advisor and generous with her time, especially at the beginning. Every conversation that we had left me inspired and excited. She saw connections in my work that I didn’t see and brought an encyclopedic and eclectic knowledge to her advising that took my work in unexpected and fulfilling directions. Her adventurous spirit—reflected in her performance as Lady Catherine de Bourgh, her co-founding of the Summer Institute in Cologne, her Yoga for Scholars—is infectious and exciting. It has been an honored privilege and an absolute joy to work with her. I give enthusiastic thanks to my committee member Jacob Smith from the Department of Radio, Television, and Film. Jake introduced me to sound studies and fueled my interest with his passion for the discipline. His enormous contribution to sound studies at Northwestern directly supported my work and the work of a new, eager community of artists and scholars. His 6 generosity with his time, insights, and feedback has been vital to the development of this dissertation. I am forever indebted to D. J. Hopkins of San Diego State University for the role he has played in my development as a scholar. He has guided me during each step of my career, beginning with recruiting me into and advising me through the rigorous MA program that inspired my research interests and gave me the confidence and skills to pursue a PhD. I appreciate his continued mentorship, which has included serving on my dissertation committee and giving helpful feedback on my writing. I will never forget his part in creating the many opportunities I have had in the last decade. Without his friendship and encouragement, I would never have taken the first step along this path. I thank Northwestern University, particularly The Graduate School and the School of Communication, for providing funding that made this work possible, including support for travel, research, and childcare. I gratefully acknowledge Huey Copeland for giving me the opportunity to work as his assistant for a year, which was a great help financially in addition to teaching me about the day-to-day work of a scholar/administrator. Thank you to my IPTD cohort—Christy Simonian Bean, Carla Della Gatta, Megan Geigner, Jessica Hinds-Bond, and Ira S. Murfin—who have each been wonderful friends and excellent colleagues. I could not imagine a better group with whom to charge through this academic adventure. I reserve special thanks to my writing group—Christy and Jessica—for such helpful 7 feedback and effusive encouragement. And I give extra special thanks to Jessica for her additional expert editing work. I thank the Tully-Doyles, especially Dennis and Juli, both of whom model the extremes of marshmallow kindness and hard-as-nails toughness. I am filled with love and thanks for the Becks. My parents Carol and Richard Beck have always been my biggest fans and have supported my every endeavor with unfailing enthusiasm. I credit them with the intellectual curiosity, love of reading, and respect for the arts necessary to devote myself to beginning and finishing this project. They have always made me feel that they were proud of me, and I hope that I can make my daughter feel the same way. Thanks to my daughter, Iris, for being a complete delight for her first year on earth. Finally, I thank Ryan Tully-Doyle who ten years ago first gave me the idea to pursue a PhD and who never doubted I could do it. I don’t know how anyone writes a dissertation without his pep- talks, brainstorming discussions, and any-time-day-or-night-on-call editing work. I wish everyone could have a Ryan. I am so grateful to have benefitted from the bountiful generosity of this gifted scholar and teacher who is also my partner. I can never thank him enough for his love and support. 8 For Mom and Dad 9 Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgments........................................................................................................................... 5 Chapter One—Ototheatre: An Introduction.................................................................................. 11 The Theatrical Event ................................................................................................................. 16 Sound Technologies and Listening Cultures ............................................................................. 22 Mobile Sound ............................................................................................................................ 26 Spaces: Actual and Virtual ........................................................................................................ 30 New Media ................................................................................................................................ 38 Chapters ....................................................................................................................................