One of the most unexpected outcomes of taking a new position was my new boss asking me if I was interested in attending Museums and the Web 2013. I’ve been going to MW as often as possible since the late ‘90s, and never fail to come away rejuvenated and full of new ideas. Most of the people I consider my closest professional peers are folks I first met at MW. So I said, “Yes, please!” and am counting down the days til I arrive in Portland.
I’m excited to attend for many reasons. This will be my first conference as an art museum professional so it’ll be interesting to see what sessions and speakers now seem valuable/relevant/important to me in my new role. I have a lot to learn, and I hope to take away a lot.
Museums and the Web is the bookend conference for the Museum Computer Network conference, and a great deal of planning and plotting will take place at MW2013 that will influence the shape of MCN2013. It’ll be great to be there for those conversations.
Since I wasn’t expecting to go this year, I paid no attention to the program until recently and therefore am not chairing a session, presenting a paper, running a workshop, etc. I can go and hang out and soak up the event, and that feels like a real gift. Thank you PEM, and Jim!
I didn’t get off completely scot-free, and that’s what this post is going to be about. I wrote some time ago about going to see Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More in NYC, as have others. It turns out the Diane Borger from Punchdrunk is going to give the closing plenary on immersive theatre and museums, and I was invited to join the panel with Diane, Seb Chan, and Suse Cairns! I am tremendously excited to be part of what could be an important community discussion and have been reading up on immersive theatre and thought it’d be worthwhile sharing some links for those who don’t yet know what immersive theatre and why it’s something museums might learn from.
Recent immersive theatre & museums articles
What can museums learn from immersive theater? | Museums and the Web 2013
Diane Borger is the producer who brought Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More to the US in 2009 (http://www.americanrepertorytheater.org/events/show/sleep-no-more). After an extended, sold-out run, the immersive theater production moved to New York, where it continues to play today (http://sleepnomorenyc.com). Please join Diane and Punchdrunk’s many museum fans and critics for an inspiring discussion of what museums can learn from immersive theater led by Seb Chan, Ed Rodley and Suse Cairns. We are all sure to be transformed by the experience!
Mark Dion’s “Curator’s Office”
Mark Dion, ArtForum
In “Curator’s Office”, books, furniture, and personal effects do not reveal their collector’s taste or knowledge, but rather spin a fictive tale about a curator gone missing in the 1950s in a period of American anticommunist paranoia.
ht to Robin White Owen (@rocombo)
The Psychology of Immersion in Video Games
by Jamie Madigan
Though it is focused on videogames, I think most (if not all) of it is relevant to both immersive theatre and to museum experiences. The unpacking of immersion, or “presence” as its called in the psych literature I found very helpful.
ht to Suse Cairns (@shineslike)
A Waking Dream Made Just for You
By Chris Colin, New York Times
Perhaps the most extreme example of immersive theatre I’ve heard of yet; a production hand-crafted and personalized for an audience of one.
Lithuania’s Soviet nostalgia: back in the USSR
by Dan Hancox, The Guardian
Feeling nostalgic for the good old Soviet Union? Then head to Lithuania, where several theme parks let visitors feel exactly what it was like – right down to scary, abusive guards.
By Tara Burton, New Statesman
Is theatre becoming too immersive?
by Alice Jones, The Independent
Alice has been put on the spot by actors time and again – and she’s sick of it
Interactive theatre: five rules of play from an audience perspective
by Miriam Gillinson, The Guardian
A useful little breakdown of how immersive theatre can let down their audiences.
How I learned to love immersive theatre
by Mark Lawson, The Guardian
This example of site-specific and non-text-based theatre, Robert Wilson’s “Walking”, sounds amazing, and since it relies on the landscape, seems like it could have utility in a museum setting, where the setting itself is often an object to be interepreted.
Though a lot of immersive theatre seems to lean heavily on adult themes, this Young Tate performance, staged around Tate Liverpool’s “Alice in Wonderland” exhibition, goes more for a “darkly playful and absurd experience”, as it invites the audience to journey beyond the exhibition and through the looking glass.
Any other great examples I’ve missed? Let me know!
Thinking about Museums 
I see you’ve been doing some research on, Ed. Me too, particularly around those dynamics between audience and performer, and the power plays as a result, but also about the element of desire (which I note surfaces in the anxiety of choice article too). My “one-on-one” experience in SNM, which I sought, was also the definitive moment for me (the other times I connected with actors and audience members alike were also memorable); but it’s also likely something harder for museums to create and capture. There is still so much to unpack. Very much looking forward to MW in general, and this session in particular.
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I suspect the timezone will be against me asking this on twitter during the panel itself, but I’m curious to know what Diane Borger thinks about audience fatigue with immersive theatre (as evidenced in Alice Jones’ piece and on a personal level, in conversations with Londoners about whether or not to see Punchdrunk’s upcoming ‘Drowned Man’ show) – is it because there are too many immersive shows for them all to be good, or because as a genre some of its power derives from the initial shock of immersion?
Also, how do ‘Premium’ tickets (which for Drowned Man include ‘access to hidden secrets’) fit in with their original vision – it feels like they reward financial rather than emotional investment, which might or might not fit in perfectly with museums, depending on your view of membership programmes and entry fees.
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Great questions, Mia! I’ll bring em with me and try to get them addressed.
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Tim Crouch’s England is a two person play performed in an art gallery (http://www.timcrouchtheatre.co.uk/shows/england). I saw it at the Hood Museum in Hanover, NH a couple of years ago. It had moments similar to SNM because you are in a group of people huddled around two actors, but they are the only characters to focus on and follow. As the play progressed they moved the group through the galleries and addressed different artworks, but always as their characters and never addressing the audience directly. It was interesting how the museum was the immersion, but the artwork became props, fading in amid the primary focus on the actors.
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