Youth Theatre Journal Multimodal Theatre Experiences

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Multimodal Theatre Experiences: Africa and 2 Dimensional Life of Her Rachael Hains-Wesson

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Deakin Learning Fut ures, Deakin Universit y, Burwood, Vict oria, Aust ralia Version of record first published: 20 Apr 2013.

To cite this article: Rachael Hains-Wesson (2013): Mult imodal Theat re Experiences: Africa and 2 Dimensional Life of Her , Yout h Theat re Journal, 27:1, 34-50 To link to this article: ht t p:/ / dx.doi.org/ 10.1080/ 08929092.2013.779348

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Youth Theatre Journal, 27:34–50, 2013 Copyright © American Alliance for Theatre and Education ISSN: 0892-9092 print / 1948-4798 online DOI: 10.1080/08929092.2013.779348

Multimodal Theatre Experiences: Africa and 2 Dimensional Life of Her RACHAEL HAINS-WESSON

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Deakin Learning Futures, Deakin University, Burwood, Victoria, Australia Australia’s theatre for young audiences (TYA) has concentrated on young people’s interest in techno-savvy narrative complexities since the early 1990s, and has done so with positive outcomes. Building from a reflective inquiry, which is based on a TYA practitioner’s viewpoint, I explore two Australian contemporary theatre productions for mixed audiences: My Darling Patricia’s Africa (2011) and Fleur Elise Noble’s 2 Dimensional Life of Her (2011), which utilize old and new technologies for differing purposes. I present the following article in two parts: The first section briefly contextualizes TYA plays in Australia using digital technologies, along with a review of the literature that introduces an ongoing dialogue about digital media in theatre. The second part showcases the creative development process and the synopsis of Africa and 2 Dimensional Life of Her before I discuss the use of old technology in Africa in the form of a techno-tele-character, and the impact of new technologies in 2 Dimensional Life of Her as a transmediated theatrical occurrence. Recommendations are made for ways that TYA practitioners might consider mixing old and new technologies with the live to compete in the cultural marketplace.

Introduction Since the 1990s, Australia’s theatre has regularly presented “filmic-like encounters” by mixing old and new technologies with the “live,” such as television and video installations, projected animation, and multimedia (Australia Council and the New South Wales [NSW] Ministry of the Arts, Theatre Board 2003, 13–47; Bevis 2010; Fitzgerald 1988; Kelly 1988; Mack 1999). The infusion of mediatized art forms into the theatre is often implemented to satisfy a visual culture, resulting in box of rewards (Booth 2009; Causey 1999; Lavender 2008; Saltz 2001). As Shelagh Magadza, the artistic director of the 2011 Perth International Arts Festival, points out: Audiences and modern theatre makers are increasingly reading and interpreting the world around them in a visual filmic way. . . . I do think the way people approach things now is much more in tune with the visual culture. (cited in Bevis 2010, 14) I would like to thank Assistant Professor Tauel Harper for his insight and comments regarding the final editing stages of this article. I would also especially like to thank the reviewers for their feedback and valued encouragement with the development of this article. Address correspondence to Rachael Hains-Wesson, Deakin Learning Futures, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, 3125 VIC, Australia. E-mail: Rachael.hainswesson@ deakin.edu.au

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Philip Auslander (2008) also contends that “there is no question that live performance and mediatized forms compete for audiences in the cultural marketplace and that mediatized forms have gained the advantage in that competition” (6). Australia’s theatre for young audiences (TYA) movement has also repeatedly moved toward a techno-savvy practice, which has been influenced by the establishment of a close working relationship between TYA companies and young people. For example, Australia’s art-funding bodies (state and federal) frequently encourage TYA companies to provide cocreative development opportunities for young people to acquire ongoing financial assistance (Australia Council and the NSW Ministry of the Arts, Theatre Board 2003). As a result, TYA companies in Australia offer young people codevelopment playwriting project opportunities, internship positions, visiting rehearsals, or positions on steering committees (Australia Council and the NSW Ministry of the Arts, Theatre Board 2003; Australian Government, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet 2011; Mack 1999, 8). Therefore, it is not uncommon for Australia’s TYA movement to acknowledge young people as a digital generation defined “in and through digital experiences” (Tapscott 1998; Tapscott and Williams 2006, 33), producing high-quality nationally and internationally renowned mediatized plays; for example, Barking Gecko’s (Western Australia) Alice@Wonderland (2002), The Amber Amulet (2011), The Red Tree (2011), and Driving into Walls (2012); Arena Theatre Company’s (Melbourne, Victoria) Game Girl (2004); Patch Theatre Company’s (Adelaide, South Australia) Sharon, Keep Your Hair On (2010) and Me and My Shadow (2012); Jigsaw Theatre Company’s (Canberra) Walk the Fence (2010); Spare Parts Puppet Theatre Company’s (Western Australia) The Birthday (2010); and Terrapin Puppet Theatre Company’s (Hobart, Tasmania) When the Pictures Came (2011) and Love (2012), to name just a few. With this in mind, my argument hinges on the idea that even though the cultural prestige of technology in TYA seems likely to increase, integrating old and new technologies with the “live” should not be an aesthetic “add on” or a mere prop to gain box office advantage alone (Bolton and Drew 1991, 375; Reed 2012). Using two Australian award-winning, contemporary theatre productions for mixed audiences as examples in this article, I discuss the experimental concepts behind the team’s creative journey when mixing technology with the live and some of the ways that technology has been implemented for differing purposes. I will achieve this by exploring how a television set is orchestrated as an influential technotele-character in My Darling Patricia’s Africa (2011), and the impact of new technologies in Fleur Elise Noble’s 2 Dimensional Life of Her (2011)1 as a transmediated theatrical encounter where image is as strong as narrative. Such an exploratory study will contribute in developing a set of practitioner-based expectations that might inform the rest of the TYA field. I also anticipate that this study will aid conversations about creating quality development practices when mixing old and new technologies with the live. This study is especially important considering the proliferated techno-theatre production output occurring in Australia’s TYA movement and the limited Australian practitioner-based empirical case reports associated with such an art form (Klein 2003; Lavender 2008; Petersen Jensen 2011).

1 The creative teams behind Africa and 2 Dimensional Life of Her were invited to take part in the 2011 Association Internationale du Théâtre de l’ Enfance et la Jeunesse (ASSITEJ; International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People) Festival. However, the production 2 Dimensional Life of Her was officially accepted as Australia’s TYA representative because the creative team behind Africa decided to accept an invitation to tour nationally in Australia.

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Literature Review According to Henry Jenkins (2006), transmediatization is the “convergence of transmedia storytelling” and is “the art of world making” which transpires mainly in movies, video, and game graphics (293). However, due to the advancement of technology in the theatre, and particularly because current generations of young artists and spectators have grown up with various technologies from an early age (Birringer 1998, 1999), transmediatization is converging onto the theatre space in a profound way. For example, the London-based theatre company Complicite’s Measure for Measure (2004) and Klaus Obermaier and Chris Haring’s Vivisector (2004) implement prerecorded and live feed to on-stage television monitors, cinema projections, music/soundscape, and video “playfully confus[ing] the boundaries between live and recorded presence, actual and virtual flesh” (Lavender 2008, 556). Fleur Elise Noble’s 2 Dimensional Life of Her (2011), which I discuss later, incorporates cross art-form practices that are projected onto and alongside the “live,” creating a convergence of transmedia storytelling that purposely “crosses stable art boundaries as an aesthetic lure, scattering the spectator’s attention” (Noble 2009, 1). We might also say that mixing technology with the live, as well as the use of cross art-form practices such as those noted in Complicite’s, Obermaier and Haring’s, and Noble’s theatrical transmediated compositions, all have a strong creative link to previous Dadaist’s works. For instance, Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948) used fragments sourced from objects such as bus tickets, old wire, and newsprint to create unusual art works that included mixing sculpture and sound poems. Hannah Höch’s work (1889–1978) combined diverse art forms such as dress patterns and textiles. Her later photomontage artworks, which used multiple photo images to create new visual images and meanings, are earlier reflections of theatre’s contemporary mediatized works. In mentioning previous works by certain Dadaists, my purpose here is to emphasize the point that an artistic connection between transmediatization and the earlier cross art-form practices of the Dadaists is occurring in the theatre. In doing so, I aim to justify the sanguine position that transmediatization and cross art-form practices in the theatre, as I describe it, are not new ideas and are not performed in isolation. In many ways, artists such as Schwitters and Höch have aided a new kind of “performance species” (Saltz 2001) that has potentially encouraged contemporary theatre makers to imagine without limitation, pushing boundaries and critiquing “the art of world making” (Birringer 1998; Birringer 1999, 367). Alternatively, other areas of interest associated with transmediatization and its impact on young people’s lives have surfaced in research fields such as pedagogy (Anderson, Carroll, and Cameron 2009; Buckingham 2006; Buckingham and Willet 2006), early childhood studies (Buckingham 2008; Jenkins 2006; Lemish 2007; Tapscott 1998; Walkerdine 2007), dance, performance (Birringer 1998; Burt 1998; Causey 1999; Hayles 1999; Pontbraid 1982; Saltz 2001), museum displays (Kauffman 1998), visual arts (Griffiths 2003; Kauffman 1998), and contemporary theatre practices (Saltz 2001; Schneider 1997). But notably, the most vigilant deliberations have occurred in research fields associated with cinema (Anderson, Carroll, and Cameron 2009; Buckingham 2006; Jenkins 2006) and early childhood pedagogical studies (Anderson, Carroll, and Cameron 2009; Short and Kauffman 2000; Short, Kauffman, and Kahn 2000). It is within these particular research fields to which I turn to unravel and elucidate the manifestation of transmediatization in TYA. To achieve this, I have considered transmediatization as described by Jenkins (2006) as well as by Petersen Jensen’s (2011) discussion on “ideas of convergence” (146). Jenkins and Petersen Jensen’s ideas are significant concepts, especially when considering the consumer’s experience in the theatre where he/she must be a hunter or a gatherer of

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information such as “chasing down bits of the story across media channels” (Jenkins 2006, 21). Additionally, the development of theories pertaining to transmediatization in areas other than cinema and game graphics are also noteworthy. For example, scholars such as Kathy Short, Gloria Kauffman, and Leslie Kahn (2000) embrace the transmediated process from the perspective of young readers. These scholars are interested in how readers might interpret a piece of literature through “multiple sign systems” because “learners naturally move between multiple forms of understanding . . . such as drama and languages as a way to think about the world” (160). Therefore, Jenkins’s (2006), Petersen Jensen’s (2011), and Short, Kauffman, and Kahn’s (2000) insights into transmediatization and its impact on young people’s lives are key theoretical positions that have assisted me in clarifying a transmediated process in TYA. More specifically, the use of Jenkins’s (2006) description of the transmediated process that operates within game graphics, cinema, and video games (Anderson, Carroll, and Cameron 2009; Buckingham 2006), as well as Short, Kauffman, and Kahn’s (2000) theory that centers on young people’s use of transmediatization as a multiple sign system when reading literature have aided the development of the following hybrid definition regarding transmediatization in TYA: Transmediatization in the theatre [TYA] is the unraveling of narratives via old and new technologies, which can also refer to the use of projected cross artform practices onto and alongside the “live” in order to create something new. By providing the above hybrid definition, I can press on and explore the following research problem: How are old and new technologies implemented within two award-winning Australian plays for mixed audiences and for what purpose? However, before commencing such an undertaking, I will first complete in the following section a brief overview of the creative development process of each play and each show’s synopsis. By structuring the article in the following way, I hope to assist the reader in contextualizing the productions’ creative environments prior to exploring and discussing the function of old technology in the form of a techno-tele-character in Africa and the transmediated process in Fleur Elise Noble’s 2 Dimensional Life of Her where techno-theatrical practices generate “multiple ways of knowing” (Short, Kauffman, and Kahn 2000, 160). My purpose here is to glean some insight into how old and new technologies are being presented with the “live” so that I can contribute to the development of a set of practitioner-based expectations that might aid the rest of the TYA field.

Africa by My Darling Patricia Creative Development Process In 2008, the Australian Theatre Company My Darling Patricia received a Malthouse Residency (Melbourne, Victoria) to produce Africa, and “it proved to be one of the most rewarding artistic exchanges of the year” (Malthouse Theatre Commission 2009, 7). The Malthouse Residency assisted the company to “attract and build capacity, artistically, culturally and financially” and “for the benefit of contemporary theatre practice and its audiences” in Australia and overseas (Malthouse Theatre Commission 2009, 1). The core values of a Malthouse Residency were to commit to a theatre that was contemporary Australian, adventurous, high-risk, high-quality, high-impact, collaborative, and a “theatre experience that is cross art form, and responsive to our times” (Malthouse Theatre Commission 2009,

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7; also see My Darling Patricia’s Company’s Web site for more information: http://www. mydarlingpatricia.com). One of the most beneficial aspects of the company’s creative development processes was receiving financial and artistic support from the residency, which helped the creative team to “imagine first before worrying about the skills needed in order to create” (Performing Lines 2011, 1). Additionally, it was important for the creative team to shape a philosophy of creativity that centered on the idea that “image is as strong as narrative” (Performing Lines 2011). This was inspired by the creative team viewing other reputable theatre companies (locally, nationally, and internationally), such as the Danish Children’s Theatre Company Gruppe 38, and the works of respected and renowned artists such as Robert Lepage at La Ceserne. As My Darling Patricia’s artistic director, Halycon Mcleod further elaborated: . . . so these artists have certainly shaped our work and our belief that image is as strong as narrative: that the power of image is leaving an element untethered, floating—inviting audiences to unfold meaning and fantasy in themselves. (Performing Lines 2011, 1)

Synopsis Africa actuates part of a true story about three six-year-old children (who are portrayed as puppets on the stage) who come from a disadvantaged socioeconomic background. The three children in Africa decide to elope and travel to Africa for their honeymoon. They decide to do this after continually viewing a travel commercial on the television set. The prerecorded sales pitch voice loudly speaks from the television explaining that Africa is a “romantic and adventurous destination,” a place to escape to, and a site for dreams, echoing a location for young people where “there are no parents and you can do whatever you want” and “you’re the boss of the world.” However, on the way to the airport, via the city train, the children are apprehended by the authorities and are returned home to a single mother who was unaware of their disappearance (see Figure 1). Africa portrays a complex picture of child neglect, and the company’s artists believed that child abuse is one of the “main issues of our time” (Performing Lines 2011, 2). During the show, it is the television set that becomes a powerful character in the form of a hypnotic techno-tele-character who aids the puppet-children to deal with an abusive reality. The techno-tele-character achieves this by inviting the children to escape into a world of fantasy where children are strong and talented heroes. Africa’s Television: Good or Evil? In Africa, the television set functions as a disembodied techno-tele-character who continually advertises Africa as an exciting destination, enticing the puppet-children to escape and act out fantasies of African safaris and adventure. Moreover, the puppet-children’s critical engagement with the influential techno-tele-character assists the audience in formulating ideas about the various roles that television viewing can play in young people’s lives. For example, the fantasy explorations instigated by the techno-tele-character help to persuade the children to run away from home with the intention to elope and to honeymoon in Africa. David Lemish (2007) similarly deems how willingly children consume information from television commercials and programs:

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Children are not passive, proverbial “tubula rasa” upon which television messages leave their marks. On the contrary, children are active consumers of television. They react to, think, feel, and create meanings. They bring to television encounters a host of predispositions, abilities, desires and experiences. They watch television in diverse personal, social and cultural circumstances. (3) The techno-tele-character is neither good nor evil but rather malevolent and savior, because there are no obvious answers to the ongoing predicaments for the puppet-children living in an adult world where the television was used as a babysitting device. The television is incorporated into the show as a hypnotic techno-tele-character that sets up a subversive message that encourages young children with the absence of parental supervision to invest more time mastering the detail of a fictional environment and less time confronting the real world. The television set is also used as a technological device that assists the children in emotionally escaping mayhem and is not necessarily a parasite (Himmelweit, Oppenheim, and Vince 1958; Odland 2004) that strangles its host, but rather the puppetchildren’s rescuer from a chaotic and violent adult-led reality (Bandura 1977; Buckingham 1996; McLuhan 1994). For example, when the techno-tele-character becomes the puppetchildren’s savior, the children imagine safaris and jungle adventures that are initiated from the images and boisterous sound effects that come from the television’s commercials. This in turn, highlights a fantasy version of the real Africa or a paracosms.2 The fantasy

Figure 1. A scene in Africa where the mother showcases a lack of enthusiasm toward her children (Busby 2009) (color figure available online).3 2 There is only a small amount of literature on “imagined worlds” in English. Paracosms, or “imagined worlds,” were first noted by the late Robert Silvey in the 1940s, who spent his working life carrying out audience research for the British Broadcasting Corporation and who had had an imagined world as a child. He teamed up with a British psychiatrist, Stephen MacKeith, and together they contacted a number of people who had had paracosms. The completed project resulted in a chapter in Morrison’s (1998) Organizing Early Experience. After Silvey’s death in 1981, MacKeith joined with psychologist, writer, and filmmaker David Cohen to further analyze the information. 3 All production images used in this article have received copyright authorization via Fair Use. The researcher of this article has also received copyright authority from the creators of the theatrical

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Figure 2. A scene from Africa where the puppet-children’s chaotic lounge room is transformed into a safari adventure world (Busby 2009) (color figure available online.).

games allow the puppet-children to become independent and therefore equal to adults. For example, in Africa, truth collides with fantasy, and the good collides with the bad. The puppet-children view Africa as a safari fantasy game, and the techno-tele-character alleviates the children’s personal and emotional war zone in the comfort of their own home. This is completed among the chaos of the children’s lounge room where they freely roam and become heroes, imagining the impossible (see Figure 2). Despite the fantasy games, the puppet-children in Africa have limited choices, however. They must relate to a contaminated world made by adult culture and subterfuge such as being surrounded by alcoholism and sexual depravity, and it is the television that aids them in escaping from such an environment. Additionally, the puppet-children’s admiration of the techno-tele-character alongside the debate surrounding the viewing habits of children reminded me of what Professor Martin Krygier (1997) once said: We are confused about what is going on in the world and we are confused about what we think should go on. At least many of us are, and that causes us unease. We often feel passionately about what happens or should happen, but we find it hard to articulate our values or defend them. We act on our values, or feel that something is right or wrong, more than we discuss or know how to discuss them. (2) The creative team behind Africa similarly articulated Krygier’s (1997) concerns here by suggesting in the following quote one of the mains reasons for creating Africa. In a sense, the production was a means to showcase a subversive message about society letting children down: works and images used in the article via e-mail. Copyright information can be obtained by contacting the author of this article: [email protected] for more details.

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Australia likes to pretend that it is an egalitarian society, but, we and the audience know that the characters in the play are very unlikely to escape their situation—opportunity is unlikely to come their way. We, as adults, know that our society lets them down. (Performing Lines, 2011, 2) In my view, the puppet-children’s class level is accentuated, subtly illustrating what they do not have by physically situating them in front of an old, small television set (see Figure 3). The children’s critical engagement with the “old” television set becomes even more apparent with relentless binaries such as “us” and “them,” “poor” and “wealthy,” and “haves” and “have-nots” (Palmberg, 2001). The most distant others are people who live, think, and seem the oddest and the most diverse from “us,” and this is true for culture as it is for the “subtle” techno-socioeconomic divide that is occurring exponentially throughout Australian society. This point comes as no surprise when one views the literature on such a subject. An earlier study in Britain once argued that “children could be addicted to television, with the worst addict being the working-class children whose viewing habits were less likely to be supervised by parents” (Himmelweit, Oppenheim, and Vince 1958, cited in Lesnik-Oberstein 2008, 240). Indeed, even when the puppet-children “react to, think, feel and create meaning” from watching the television set, the audience is swayed toward the idea that television has an inappropriate or negative sway on socioeconomic disadvantaged young people’s lives, especially when there is no adult supervision (Altman 1986; Bandura 1977, 74; Lohr 1940). However, television viewing is not always a negative influence on young people’s lives (Bandura 1997; Buckingham 1996; Lemish 2007; McLuhan 1994). There is good evidence to suggest that very young children watching television are often able to distinguish between fact and fiction, and that by the age of six they are beginning to develop knowledge of how programs and films are made (Bandura 1977; Buckingham 1996; McLuhan 1994). Children at this age will readily draw attention to amateur acting or low-budget special effects and will frequently dismiss programs as merely “fake”

Figure 3. A scene from Africa where the puppet-children sit in front of an old, small elevision set (Busby 2009) (color figure available online).

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(McLuhan 1994). There is also evidence to support that by about the age of seven, children are increasingly comparing what they watch with their own experiences, or with what they “believe or have been told is the case about the real world” (Buckingham 1996, 213; also see Bandura 1977). Africa’s use of the television set highlights this Jekyll and Hyde nature of our understanding of TV and children, and dramatizes this through the children’s reliance on the techno-tele-character as a guardian as well as through the children’s inability to tell reality from fiction. As audience members, whether we feel that continual television viewing for children is only suitable for certain classes or is a suspicious technological medium that is toxic for all children, in Africa, it has the ability to rescue the children from a disruptive family situation where the neighbors (who are really us) are nowhere to be found. As David Dale (2006) notes, “[Australians] don’t believe there is a class structure. There should be no such thing as inherited privilege in Australia—unless it’s [their] kids” (39). Interestingly, Dale (2006) goes on to mention that there are “more plasma televisions in the average middle class home than occupants” (2006, 44). With this in mind, the puppet-children’s relationship with the techno-tele-character further extenuates upon a cultural signifier that reflects a particular subversive techno-socio divide where inherited privilege is based on what children do not have.

2 Dimensional Life of Her by Fleur Elise Noble Creative Development Process Fleur Elise Noble is an Australian creator of visual-based theatre experiences (see the artist’s Web site for more information, http://www.fleurelisenoble.com/index.html) and employs a diverse range of art forms such as drawing, animation, puppetry, projection, and performance. Noble’s work often focuses on the performative opportunities of drawing and its action in and on performance. 2 Dimensional Life of Her has toured nationally and internationally and has received various accolades such as the “Best in Show” in the Under the Radar Program at the Brisbane Festival (2008) and the 2010 Greenroom Award for Video Design (Theatre-Alternative and Hybrid category). 2 Dimensional Life of Her is primarily set in an artist’s studio and is a visual performance made from cross art-form practices that are projected over and alongside the live where: . . . a richly imagined parallel world is awoken where everything that was thought to be still or flat becomes something else. Her (Noble) drawings reproduce themselves, drift between surfaces and move in and out of three dimensions. She loses control of her creations and absolutely anything becomes possible. (Insite Arts, 2012, 1) Noble’s creative development process was similar to Africa’s, which for Nobel began with a desire to concentrate on “imagine without limitation” while gleaning some insight through the eyes of children. Anthony Coxeter (2011) further concludes by suggesting that “her (Noble’s) art is similar to a style of inquiry; her creations themselves tend, on their own, to peer back into the mysterious creative effort that produced them” (1). Noble also explains her creative process as being highly influenced by her audience: “[O]nce I [performed] for a group of a hundred three-year-olds and they were all adamant that there were real puppets behind all of the paper, and that the puppets were just standing there waiting to burst out of the paper the whole time” and “when I made it (2 Dimensional Life

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of Her), I lived with a two and half Again, please confirm that “two and a half year-old” is written properly as based on the original. year-old. The whole time she was the only person who was really interested in what I was doing and followed the whole process” (Nelson 2011, 2).

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Synopsis 2 Dimensional Life of Her is mostly image-based and leads the audience to view numerous possibilities within a working artist’s studio where sketches come to life only to be erased by Noble’s mop or destroyed by rogue string puppets. In turn, the puppets slash their paper confines and chase a projection of Noble out of the various two-dimensional surfaces in which she finds herself. Before the puppets visually overwhelm the set, Noble then resurfaces on a different part of the screen with a mop and bucket, cleaning away the art to nothingness. The production is often presented to the audience via black-and-white projections, giving the impression that the work “takes on lives of their own, scurrying back and forth between these sufaces” (Walker 2011, 1). Instead of a traditional text-based narrative that uses multimedia as an additional “add on” to enhance the aesthetics of the storyline, 2 Dimensional Life of Her mixes digital enhanced images that are projected over and alongside the live, positioning an image-driven production that expects the audience’s imagination to fill in the missing gaps. Overall, the production is not founded on any conventional or traditional text-based narrative. It gravitates more toward integrating multiple images onto the stage via projection. Due to the implementation of technology alongside the organic (which performs side-by-side), an overflow of drawing and animation is created, and the audience is left with a feeling that the narrative is breaking out of the fines of a single performance medium (see Figure 4). Moreover, the naturalistic soundscape cushions the maelstrom of visual and imagebased projections, pushing artistic boundaries to make “multiple meanings” (Short,

Figure 4. An image of puppets that are projected alongside and over the live in 2 Dimensional Life of Her (Williams 2011).

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Kauffman, and Kahn 2000, 160). Essentially, 2 Dimensional Life of Her celebrates diverse art-form practices on the stage via technology that challenges the concept of “live” as “something real beneath the abstract of the real” (Noble 2009, 7).

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Transmediatization: No Fixed Place to Rest Presenting a theatre production that showcases projected cross art-form practices that eventuate into a transmediated process does not make it less than a traditional theatre story, but rather an alternative way of articulating ideas, themes, and subtexts. 2 Dimensional Life of Her manipulates technology with theatrical and thematic rewards via its image-driven narrative, celebrates the use of technology and transmediatization in the theatre, and breaks communication barriers. Additionally, the fascinating and numerous images displayed in 2 Dimensional Life of Her are “similar to offering the audience charged hints or gestures, a line, a stage picture which passes as quickly as the spoken word—which the imagination then works upon to complete” (Levy 1987, 36). Not only does a theatre production that uses multimedia projections and applies cross art-form practices via a transmediated process expect the audience to use their imagination to “make meaning” but also encourages the viewer’s eyes to roam, struggling to be still. In 2 Dimensional Life of Her, there is no fixed perspective that the audience member can place onto the theatrical stage. Instead, the eye becomes an ever-moving organ with no place to rest, and in return, the brain is charged with new ideas that are immediate and limitless (Pontbraid, 1982). The unsure roaming of the viewer’s eye is a reflection of technology’s power over society’s progress, which can be fast-paced and unmerciful (see Figure 5). 2 Dimensional Life of Her reflects how technology is often about the fast and the now, and those who cannot keep up are often left behind. As Jeanne Klein argues:

Figure 5. Cross art-form practices, using projected images and movement onto and alongside the live, encouraging the audiences’ eyes to roam with no fixed place to rest (Williams 2011) (color figure available online).

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. . . new computerized technologies have created ideological . . . gendered rifts between young and older generations and among those who embrace and resist new ways of distinguishing authentic reality from virtual simulations to apprehend the absolute relativity of “truth.” (2003, 38) Nevertheless, one of the main draw cards concerning transmediated, multiprojected theatrical works such as 2 Dimensional Life of Her is that it can bridge the gap between generations, cultures, and art forms. Another draw card is that the artworks that are displayed in 2 Dimensional Life of Her are similar to what Levy (1997) terms a “cultural attractor” (95). A cultural attractor is a creative process where common ground between diverse communities is instigated. The challenge, Levy (1997) suggests, is to create works with enough depth that they can then justify such large-scale efforts: “Our primary goal should be to prevent closure from occurring too quickly” (95). 2 Dimensional Life of Her functions as a cultural attractor, because it implements a transmediated storytelling that unfolds across multiple media platforms with each new image producing “distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole” (Jenkins 2006, 285). Therefore, expressing theatrical stories via technology that is image-based using projection pushes the audience to seek new understandings behind the artwork, encouraging an experience of new possibilities. Moreover, the everyday object such as paper in 2 Dimensional Life of Her becomes a work of art through hours of crafting, manipulation, and focus, resulting in “multiple meaning making” (Short, Kauffman, and Kahn 2000, 160). Additionally, a transmediated show such as this promotes a maelstrom of differing art forms and performance practices to converge on the stage, producing a new theatrical “spatial plane” (McAuley 2002). The new spatial plan communicates to the audience without the use of a conventional storyline or a traditional orientation of the performer’s body in the space, seeking new heights of expression and making new connections. As McAuley (2002) states: . . . the activation of spatial planes through orientation of the performer’s [or projected] body is always a means of bringing people and things into a relationship, of making connections. (112) Due to the production’s unique narrative structure, which is image-driven, the performer’s (Noble’s) body orientates itself within the space alongside technology, avoiding a conventional way of communicating such as using dialogue/text (to relay information to the audience) or via the traditional use of a performer’s body in the space (see Figure 6). A projected image mixed with the live thus becomes strong as narrative. As Nancy Kindelan (1985) also points out, “when the play’s dramatic structure is understood and has activated the imagination; the resulting visual and aural imagery creates both a physical and scenic language” ( 7). Alternatively, the image-based narrative prevents the artist from being in complete control of their creation. Instead, the show’s various projected images become a reimagined “site of magic, alchemy and Promethcan creation” (Noble 2009, 3). For example, when a puppet is projected onto the stage and dips its head in ink and creates portraits, it does this by beating its head against the paper, smacking it down, and creating numerous line drawings. This particular image that was strong as a narrative reminded me of the limitations of the spoken word and the challenges associated with the overwhelming need to push forward and break out from under the restrictive yoke of a conventional textbased story or the traditional performer’s body in the space that has “absolute resolution” (Pontbraid 1982, 160). Perhaps that is one of the main reasons that the transmediated flux of images across the live in 2 Dimensional Life of Her reminded me of a child playing in a

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Figure 6. Images and cross art-form practices are projected alongside and over the performer in 2 Dimensional Life of Her (Noble 2011).

sandbox or painting at the easel. Everything and anything is possible, and all are welcome. Finally, there is also the added bonus that this type of meaning making is the responsibility of the participant, because meaning is not explicitly given, but is cooperatively created.

Discussion and Conclusion Australia’s TYA has concentrated on collaborating with young people’s techno-savvy mind sets since the 1990s (Australia Council and the NSW Ministry of the Arts, Theatre Board 2003; Australian Government, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet 2011; Mack 1999). In my view, this has been due to the close working relationship between TYA companies and young people, resulting in an Australian TYA movement that has an innate understanding of young people as “a generation defined in and through its experiences of digital computer technology” (Buckingham 2006, 1). In Australia, usually, quality in the performing arts is traditionally measured by a show’s positive critical reviews, accolades, awards, and box office profits reflecting opinions and tastes. Additionally, shows that are branded as being high-quality such as Africa and 2 Dimensional Life of Her have often been subjected to evaluation and assessment by funding bodies and art committee members (Boerner and Renz 2008, 21; Hume and Sullivan Mort 2008). High-quality mainstream TYA productions are also measured by a similar process. However, they are measured with the added expectation that TYA companies will encourage codevelopment opportunities for young people and acquire audience-based knowledge to secure state and federal funding opportunities (Radbourne et al. 2009; Reed 2012, 28–29). More specifically, in this article, to investigate how Africa and 2 Dimensional Life of Her have successfully used old and new technologies to produce high-quality theatre for

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mixed audiences, it was important to develop a hybrid working definition to help frame the exploration. By providing such a hybrid definition from the theories presented by Jenkins (2006), Petersen Jensen (2011), Short, Kauffman, and Kahn (2000) enabled me to gain an avenue of inquiry that assisted in critiquing the function of old technology in the form of a techno-tele-character in Africa and the impact of new technologies in 2 Dimensional Life of Her. Some of the connections made between Africa and 2 Dimensional Life of Her, which lie beyond the fact that they both utilize technology in some way and that the creative teams’ choices in these two productions have increased audience size, are found in the plays’ interactions between puppet-like children and humans alongside old and new technologies. The puppet-children in Africa are invited to act out to survive. On the other hand, the audience members when viewing 2 Dimensional Life of Her are invited to act within and alongside technology and all its possibilities, using their imagination to fill in the gaps and make new meaning. Africa’s use of old technology in the form of a techno-tele-character is a powerful motif. The tele-character is used as a source of imaginative exploration that rescues the puppet-children from a chaotic adult-led reality, because the television is “sensed as live by the home-viewing audience” (Altman 1986, 45). Additionally, due to certain technological advancements, the tele-character becomes a cultural signifier of what a certain socioeconomic disadvantaged community does not have. On the other hand, in 2 Dimensional Life of Her, technology is celebrated in all its glory, encouraging the audience’s imagination to contribute to the understanding of the unconventional image-based narrative. The transmediated process that occurs in 2 Dimensional Life of Her breaks down communication barriers while bringing diverse art forms and communities back to the theatre. Despite the obvious production and theatrical differences between Africa and 2 Dimensional Life of Her, these shows have much in common. For one, they each place the artist/performer at the center of the experimental process, “before worrying about the skills needed in order to create” (Performing Lines 2011, 2). Second, they use technology as a type of character and motif, while accommodating for mixed audiences and a visual culture and successfully competing in the cultural marketplace. Third, they are multimodal theatre experiences that move back and forth along a pendulum of differing theories such as Auslander’s (2008) ideas about the mixing of the live and technology as an assimilation of new translations, Jacques Lacan’s (1968) thoughts concerning the “I” as either a “real” or “virtual” presence, and Peggy Phelan’s (1993) argument, which centers on the “live” performance as being nonreproducible. This in turn, raises additional questions, outside the scope of this article, such as how to redefine the vocabulary used when discussing and writing about theatre that involves media in the stage experience, or critiquing what is a “play” or what is “live.” Finally, Africa and 2 Dimensional Life of Her are shows that utilize technology for differing purposes. And as Féral (1982) and others point out, multimodal theatre experiences further emphasize that though theatre once was “limited to the bare stage, [now it] has found important resources for creating dramatic productions in such technologies as radio, film, television, and other electronic media” (Féral, 1982, 181; Causey 2006; Sontag 1966).

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