Contemporary1 media usersâspecifically iGen students, born in the 1990s through 20102âsee and operate with(in) the world in a fundamentally different manner than those that came only a decade before. In twenty-first-century techno-culture, the pervasive influence of the Internet accessed through the medium of smart devices makes constant multitasking and direct interaction necessary for effective learning in iGen students. These students have adapted their way of seeing and interacting to a media -saturated environment where they are connected to multiple times, places, and things simultaneously. Teachers of contemporary theatre should understand this change as an epistemological shift, which also impacts what iGen students expect from theatre.
This chapter argues for a new direction towards thinking through digital paradigms to reassemble what theatre is and what it will be for todayâs and tomorrowâs students. Because the iGen is habituated to a deluge of constant interactivity based in media use that puts the individual at the center of creation , I argue it is also necessary to adapt theatre practice into a model that puts the audience at the center of the event. This chapter offers ways of approaching this type of audience-centered theatre. After laying a foundation for iGen ways of seeing and reading the world, I offer strategies for developing interactive theatre that emphasizes the agency of the twenty-first-century participating audience. A starting point for developing pedagogical tools that engage students in the process of interactive theatre making is to examine existing frameworks and methodologies for implementing interaction developed in technology and games studies.
In interactive theatre , the audience becomes the center of the performance as participant, observer, and author, thereby changing the focus of theatrical storytelling and performance from making something seen into something experienced. Terminologies from game design and human computer interaction (HCI) serve as a bridge between technology studies and structuring interactive theatre experiences. These digitally born approaches offer an alternative to linear plot , arc-based dramaturgies . To give the reader multiple avenues to explore when designing interaction, this essay introduces methodologies from Steve Benson and Gabriella Giannachiâs (2011) mixed reality performance , Jocelyn Spenceâs (2016) performative experience design , and Katie Salenâs and Eric Zimmerman (2004) games design fundamentals. Supplementing these methodologies and terminologies is interview material from Matt Adams of Blast Theory ,3 which serves as practical advice to those who will teach interactive theatre making from the perspective of acting, directing, and design. The primary purpose of this essay is to offer a better understanding of the operation and process of digital interaction and how it can be applied to multiple areas of theatre training.
Contemporary Technogenesis and Cognitive Adaptation in iGeneration Learners
During the Enlightenment Period, which began during the European Renaissance, the printed book became a primary technology for information transfer and, thus, a new model of learning. After nearly 500 years of dominance, the printed word began to give way to digital epistemologies and structures in the digital age. In a paradigm of constant connectivityâfueled by mixed-reality and multimedia âthe Internet captures the cognitive apparatus of its users, prompting the need for multitasking, and constant interaction. The connection todayâs student has to the Internet is ever-present, and as Nicholas Carr (2010) explains , this connection âfundamentally changes peoplesâ perception of the world by changing our experiences and our behaviorâ and rewires the circuitry of our brains (31). Katherine Hayles (2012) describes this rewiring through the concept of technogenesis, which is an epigenetic process through which humans co-evolve alongside the prevailing technologies of their cultural milieu. Hayles explains this process as one where cognitive changes arise from interaction with(in) oneâs environment as opposed to alterations of oneâs genetic makeup passed down through hereditary factors (10). Technics and technologies embedded in contemporary social systems operate in dynamic feedback loops with humans accelerating cognitive, perceptual, and social reconfigurations of reality. Hayles explains:
Young people are not the only ones affected by these technologies, but they serve as a central model of large-scale technogenetic evolution. Hayles argues that the younger the members of the generational cohort are, the more likely they are to have a visibly pronounced change in cognitive adaptation (69). The typical college-age student in technologically advanced societies has been culturally molded by computer aided adaption of textual information in the form of multimedia and hyperlinked text delivered over the Internet through a myriad of iDevices . The term iDevice refers to portable communications media that are pervasively connected to the Internet and form a symbiotic relationship with their users who then, in turn, also become literally and figuratively connected to all things and all places. These devices accelerate the cognitive shift due to their pervasive interconnection with humansâ sense of âbeing-in-the-worldâ (Farman 2012; Lewis and Johnson 2017). In 2008 the number of Internet connected devices reached a crucial threshold, with more devices than people on earth, and in 2016 the number tripled (Hayles 2016).As digital media âŠbecome more pervasive, they push us in the direction of faster communication, more intense and varied information streams, more integration of humans and intelligent machines, and more interactions of language with code. These environmental changes have significant neurological consequences, many of which are now becoming evident in young people. (11)
Carr (2010) warns how interaction via the Internet has begun to change the way we think and interact with the world. This argument, although nostalgic and alarmist, productively helps usher in new ways of thinking about theatre of the future; one that is itself interactive. Carr explains that Intellectual technologies such as language , art, and film shape us just as much as we shape them. Carr argues they âhave the greatest and most lasting power over what and how we thinkâ (45). For him, writing has been the most influential intellectual technology to affect the human mind and human civilization until the advent of the Internet.
Juxtaposing the intake of information via pre-digital textual material (such as printed books) against digital textual material (such as hypertext ) helps show how intellectual technologies affect modes of cognitive interaction and subsequently human subjectivity formation. For example, when reading a book on a printed page, historical experience has been one of interaction in the form of deep immersion via contemplation and imagination . This type of immersion is less plausible for many iGen students who were raised and culturally habituated to hyperlinked text and multimedia . Instead, they require physical and active interaction found in digital immersion. Hypertext reading keeps the reader engaged by guiding them into constant jumping from place to place, portal to portal, in a process of hyper-active spatial-visual -cognitive multitasking. Haylesâ (2012) research shows how hyper-reading changes both the cognitive function and the anatomical structure of the human brain (11). Hyper-reading is the norm in digital contexts such as blogs, wikis, social media posts, news sites, and so on, in which readers employ tactics of keyword filtering, âskimming, hyperlinking, âpeckingâ (pulling out a few items from a longer text), and fragmentingâ (61). Hayles adds to this list juxtaposing, where readers have multiple texts/screens open simultaneously. As a primary mode of reading, hyper-reading neurologically imprints on the reader an obsessive perspective, figuratively addicted to multitasking and constant user initiated interaction.
Haylesâ work highlights how current pedagogical strategies have been unable to adjust to the accelerated pace of the change in contemporary learnerâs cognitive faculties (11). As teachers in the post-digital4 university environment, we often encounter students with laptops open conducting an intricate symphony of note taking, text messaging, web browsing for contextualization, while also often engaging in vocal and physical class participation. Millennials and the iGen are often derided for their lack of deep attention, but doing so is analogous to degrading a bat for developing a highly attuned sense of hearing at the expense of sight. Twenty-first-century technogenesis gives the iGen skill-sets necessary to survive in an interactive and interconnected world. Deep attention is replaced by hyper-attention, which allows complex multitasking necessary for navigating todayâs post-digital environment. Instead of thinking of their lack of deep attention as weak, I argue it is more productive to think of their way of seeing the world as a necessity, considering these students comprise the audiences of the future.
Educational psychologist Larry Rosen (2010) makes an argument for both understanding and adapting to the learning styles of the iGen. He argues for pedagogy that emulates the interactivity found in computer environments. In these environs, experience is tactile and corporeal, guided by hand movements such as swipes and pinches on screens and clicks on mice or track pads. Rosen also refers to the iGen as a generation of content creators through their constant process of uploads, posts, âlikes,â tweets, blogs, vlogs, and so on (43). He argues this has led to a paradigm in which âThey believe that they literally cannot perform only a single task at a time without being bored to deathâ (32). In Rosenâs research , the average late-stage Net Gen and/or iGen student has between a 57 and 88 percent chance of multitasking with media during most activities, and they have a 73 percent likelihood of multitasking with some form of media during face-to-face conversations (82). The total combined time multitasking with media is over 20 hours per day (29). At the time of this writing , both Carrâs and Rosenâs research is nearly a decade old and had only begun to measure the impact of smartphones. Pew Research Centerâs 2016 study of cell-phone usage shows that American college students under the age of 29 have a 100 percent chance of owning a cellphone of any kind and a 92 percent chance of owning a smartphone with internet connectivity (Pew Research Center 2016). With the influence of these devices constantly present and connected, these students require a world that is always immediately available and accessible via direct interaction. When asked how audiences of various media h...