Sketching interactions for young audiences

Young theater audiences enjoy participatory forms of theater that allow them to engage with content in interactive and playful ways. We want to get to know this young audience and understand how they engage with interactive technology and live actors in theatrical settings.

Over the course of a 3-day kick-off workshop, 4 weeks of exploration and 1 week of rehearsal, students will work together with the art collective KOBAKANT to produce three participatory sketches – “Three Perspectives” – that explore what roles interactive digital technologies and live actors can take on in participatory performances.

We will be working with a cast of 2-3 live actors and explore human touch and sound as primary forms of input and output to a digital system. We will receive input on ‘collective work with interviews’ from Anja Kerkerschkewicz and make a short research with school pupils. We will have access to a “Premierenklasse” of school students who will accompany our process and join multiple playtests to give us feedback on how our creations are experienced and perceived by young audiences.

The sketches will be presented at the bat Studio Theater on June 5th and 6th, and at Theater STRAHL’s opening event on June 17th at their new location at Ostkreuz.
Following the Hybride Formen project, KOBAKANT will continue working with theater STRAHL to produce a full scale performance for young audiences. “Three Perspectives” (or documentation thereof) will be presented at the premier of this production in October 2023.

Links

Photos >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72177720308312459
Spiel und Objekt / Hybride Formen: https://spielundobjekt.de/2023/06/01/hybride-formen/
Final documentation: https://spielundobjekt.de/2023/07/12/documentation-video-of-our-hybride-formen-seminar-at-bat/
Theater Strahl: https://theater-strahl.de/projekt/look-no-screens
Jupiter funding: https://www.kulturstiftung-des-bundes.de/de/projekte/buehne_und_bewegung/detail/point_of_presence_oder_look_mom_no_screens.html

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==SCHEDULE==

===Kick-Off Workshops===
17.04. 11:00-17:00 Introduction to collective work with Interviews
18.04.-20.04. Day1 (10-16:00): Introduction to youth theater (STRAHL)
Day2+3 (10-15/16:00): Introduction to technology (Ladenlokal)

===in between===
21.04.-26.04. optional: Augenblickmal Festival – Festival for Young Audiences
augenblickmal.de
21.04.-07.05. two weeks to collect interviews

===Exploration Phase===
08.05.-08.06. S&&O Ladenlokal (Hannah u. Mika, Mo+Di.10:00-16:00, Mi-Fr eigenständig)

===Rehearsing Phase===
01.06-08.06. bat Studio Theater
31.05. visit by Feedbackseminar

===Shows===
09. + 10.06. Final “Playtest” / Showing (bat)
17.06. Theater STRAHL opening event (Ostkreuz)
Oktober Theater STRAHL Rahmenprogram (Ostkreuz)

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Process

We started off felting…. conductive fibers…. to make electrodes that could trigger pre-recorded sound samples (audio files).

We visited a theater piece #berlinberlin at Theater Strahl:

We talked and noted things down:

Selecting from our notes, we made three experiments:

More talking, more noting, more talking…

We realize that communication and collaboration are not easy when our schedules are so different:

In a first playtest with our premierenklasse we test if they understand that they can make connections between “touchpoints”:

Preparing for our second playtest with premierenklasse, we build a diorama to help develop a story around neilA:

What is the story we have so far, and how can we tell it?

The premierenklasse at play:

The premierenklasse share with us what stories they understood:

We arrange our ideas in order to continue:

We start thinking about how to translate our work so far into the final BAT state:


Instead of “touchpoints” being paper circles on the wall… we make them become secret material containers:

The story is told through audio snippets:

The ever present question of the “role of the actors”…. never feels like we get to a good place to be creative about this aspect….

The materials…. to touch:

Test:

Reflect:

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Pure Data Code

Link to Pure Data sound player code >> https://github.com/mikst/samplePlayer

you can download pure data from here >> https://puredata.info/downloads

and the Teensy Arduino sketch is posted here >> https://github.com/KOBAKANT/TeensyTouch

Teensyduino >> https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/td_download.html

Fast Touch Arduino library from Adrian Freed >> https://github.com/adrianfreed/FastTouch/

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Online Synthesizer

MIDI(Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a protocol that is used for communication between electrical musical instruments. It contains notes between 0-127, velocity 0-127.
Many software and digital instruments understands MIDI signals. In this workshop we used the below online synthesizer that can also accept MIDI signal.
Cardboard synth (online synthesizer, only works on Chrome browser)

https://www.gsn-lib.org/apps/cardboardsynth/index.html

and here is how to enable USB MIDI interface on Chrome

https://www.audiotool.com/product/function/midi/

The keys are now programmed to play midi note 60,62,64, 65,67,69,71,72 an octave from C3.

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CREDITS
Three Perspectives was developed in a five-week collaborative process by master students of Spiel und Objekt, actors from Theater STRAHL, and the artist collective KOBAKANT. With feedback and inspiration from Ms. Lange’s theater class at Anna Essinger Community School. The work took place within the framework of a JUPITER grant – aiming to raise awareness about theater for young audiences.

Veronika Risnovska
Mika Satomi
Lisa Brinckmann
Leonie Kopineck
Joanna Mandalian
Jana Heilmann
Hannah Perner-Wilson
Friederike Hänsel
Amos Detscher

Gefördert im Programm Jupiter der Kulturstiftung des Bundes. Gefördert von der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien.