HowlRound Theatre Commons: Basement Complex Suite 102 begins in near darkness. There are no house lights, so ushers have to lead the audience to their seats with small flashlights. There is a dim red glow from an exit sign, and, far upstage, the LEDs of analogue electronic instruments flicker. Each audience member also has their own flashlight, handed to them when they arrived; some play with the switch but nothing happens. A couple people giggle nervously, others whisper to each other. Most aren’t used to being in the dark this long.
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I did a bit of research, and I would estimate that they had a per-unit cost of around $30. There are varying levels of licensing offered for Max, their programming software, but I would guess that the whole project came in around $1000, not including any labor or development costs. That’s pretty wild for an entire wireless lighting system. If I am understanding correctly, however, the team also had an entire year to build the technology. On CMU’s show timelines, it is unlikely we would be able to develop, test, and produce a system like this. For a smaller theater with limited budget, looking to grow the limits of their technical capability, this sort of development process would be a fantastic way to add tricks to their inventory. It also speaks to the credibility of the “building blocks” development philosophy: develop so that each individual product can integrate with or add to another.
This is really cool. It is impressive that this small company was able to invent a new way of experiencing theater with very little. These people used the resources available and the internet to create a wireless audience controlled light design machine that looked like a cheap flashlight. Recently I went to a art house where they try to create environments using all senses, allowing the participators get to influence the artwork too. They did this through an app, operated by the user who chooses a pattern or butterfly to send out into the surrounding ether.This small self-participation does a lot to the user's experience of art. It makes the audience feel included and special, as a contributor to the experience. Being able to really provide an experience for the audience as opposed to to the audience is something which completely changes the value of a piece to people. I am excited to see what other kinds of ways we can creative affordable innovative ways to do audience participation.
Ooooh. I really like this idea, and not just for lighting. The concept of giving the audience limited control to create spontaneity and variety while still maintaining a degree of artistic control sounds both like an amazing and unique experience and just…. fun. It seems to me that you could do a similar thing with sound in an interactive piece by allowing the audience members to move throughout the space as they wish, each carrying a portable speaker. The idea might even be applicable to scenery, giving each audience member a small amount of paint— although depending on the goal of that production, that might end badly. Regardless, allowing the audience to control lighting or sound is an interesting approach to interactive theatre that I have not come in contact with before. In most of what I’ve seen the audience is allowed either to interact with the actors or to interact with the environment by viewing it from different angles, like with VR. I hope I get the opportunity to work with a production like this though, where the audience interacts directly with the environment and changes it for the rest of the viewers.
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