Join world leading designers, directors and theatre companies, as well as leading academics for a one-day symposium considering the practical and creative possibilities of mixed reality and virtual worlds in theatre and performance.

Staging Mixed Reality will focus on the ever-evolving field of mixed reality performance and will examine the new aesthetics being developed through digital possibilities. From interactive media to virtual reality, animation to video gaming, technology has enabled theatre practitioners to offer varied perspectives of reality that reimagine theatrical worlds.

Staging Mixed Reality will consider how real and virtual worlds have been combined in performance to produce new environments and encounters for audiences. It will explore the critical and creative processes involved in the discipline and ask key questions of its practice, such as:

What methods do designers, digital designers and directors use to achieve their intended effects and affects in performance? How are the boundaries of performance expanded through mixed reality and virtual worlds? And, to what extent do virtual worlds in theatre reframe or transform how we interact with the real world?

With these questions and more in mind, this theatre design symposium will explore how experiments with technology and digital media have shaped and altered the versions of reality represented on stage today.

Contributors: Suzanne Andrade, Arnold Aronson, Toby Coffey, Steve Jelley, Sophie Jump, Roma Patel and Dick Straker, including a presentation of work by BA Theatre Design students from Wimbledon College of Arts.

Staging Mixed Reality is convened by Dr Matthew McFrederick, Professor Eileen Hogan and Professor Jane Collins as part of a collaboration between Research at Camberwell, Chelsea, Wimbledon’s Public Programme, the National Theatre and the Jocelyn Herbert Archive.

Tickets: £55 / £40 (senior citizens) / £15 (students/U18s/entry pass)

UAL students and staff should use the promo codes when booking tickets. Please contact [email protected] for more info.

Credit: Monostatos threatens Pamina in The Magic Flute, co-conceived by 1927 & Komische Opera Berlin. Co-directed by Suzanne Andrade & Barrie Kosky; Animation by Paul Barritt.

Schedule (timings and speakers subject to change):

 

9.30 – 10.00	Registration
10.00 – 10.15	Welcome and Opening Remarks – Judith Merritt (National Theatre, Head of Talks and Exhibitions) Eileen Hogan (Wimbledon College of Arts and Jocelyn Herbert Archive Trustee) Simon Betts (Dean of Performance, Camberwell, Chelsea, Wimbledon Colleges of Arts)
10.15 – 11.10	KEYNOTE LECTURE The Reality of Things Arnold Aronson Emeritus Professor of Theatre at Columbia University   Introduced by Jane Collins
11.10 – 11.30	Break
11.30 – 12.00	Sensing Scenography: Empowering Audiences Roma Patel Scenographer and Installation Artist at Digital Set Design; Founder at Makers of Imaginary Worlds.
12.00 – 12.30	Vicarious Reality Dick Straker Video and Projection Designer at Mesmer; Lecturer of BA Digital Theatre Design at Wimbledon College of Arts.
12.30 – 13.00	Panel Discussion Chaired by Jane Collins
13.00 – 14.00	Lunch
14.00 – 14.20	Presentation by BA Theatre Design students Wimbledon College of Arts Facilitated by Jane Collins, Peter Farley and Sophie Jump
14.20 – 15.00	Mixed Realities Panel Discussion Toby Coffey (Immersive Storytelling Studio, National Theatre) Steve Jelley (Dimension Studio)   Introduced by Judith Merritt Chaired by Arnold Aronson
15.00 – 15.20	Break
15.20 – 15.50	Layered realities in the immersive site-specific performances of Seven Sisters Group Sophie Jump Senior Lecturer in Theatre Design at Wimbledon College of Arts and Co-Artistic Director of Seven Sisters Group
15.50 – 16.20	‘Anim-acting’ Suzanne Andrade Co-Artistic Director of 1927
16.20 – 16.50	Panel Discussion Chaired by Matthew McFrederick
16.50 – 17.00	Closing Remarks Arnold Aronson
17.00 – 18.00	Drinks Reception in the Duffield Studio.