Page 127 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2014

AC/E digital culture ANNUAL REPORT 2014were at the service of their employer just as much as the butler would have been, and they wore livery just like the other servants.These ideas began to change with the French Revolution. Transcendental and mythical subjects came much closer. The distance between the stage and the audience became even shorter and the performing arts once again aspired to change the thoughts and behaviour of spectators.From the mid-19th century onwards the efforts of the performing arts were centred on obtaining the spectator’s maximum attention on what was happening on the stage. With Richard Wagner, who was inspired by recovering the spirit of ancient Greek tragedy, spectators witnessed a musical drama that was a mirror of themselves and of the things that surrounded them. The lights and the orchestra, on view during the 18th century, would disappear and he would be the first to put the lights out and hide the orchestra in a pit. And all this was done with the aim of concentrating the spectators’ attention, of captivating it, on what was happening on the stage.The adoption of new technologies in the economic and social life of these early years of the 21st century has led, according to the name given to it by various experts, to veritable attention economics. The wealth of information is of such magnitude that recipients must process and select from all these stimuli. The struggle to attract their attention has become one of the axioms of the new digital society, precisely what has been happening in the history of the performing arts.There may be those who might be suspicious about the application of these technologies in a field in which the spectators’ attention should be focussed on what is happening on the stage. However, far from representing an obstacle, the application of the new technologies to the performing arts is an opportunity, not only for increasing the efficacy of reaching the public, but also for creating new audiences. It is the aim of this study to provide examples of this change.AC/EThe application of the new technologies to the performing arts has, firstly, generated a series of changes in the conception and staging of works, and secondly it has generated changes to the way people attend these performances.The first and clearest consequence has been the change their use has had on the works being performed. The technical possibilities have multiplied the options for stage designers. It is no longer just the stage machinery but also the resources in the stage sets themselves that affect the mise-en-scène. New arts such as video art or sound performance have opened the way forward when reconsidering works, considered to be classical, as new contemporary proposals.The second consequence concerns the way in which the public attends a performance. People’s attention will still be focussed on what is happening on the stage, but we can wonder if, in the future, the new works created for these spaces will include a way of interacting with the public via the electronic devices everyone has in their pocket. In the end this is about “culture seen with other eyes through other eyes” as IsabelF. Peñuelas saysin her article“Culture in theCloud”, for thisAnnual Report.The oft-repeatedphrase, “Pleaseturn your mobilephone off” might soon become, “Please put your mobile phone on silent mode” or, “Please put your mobile phone on theatre mode”, the latter being a new mode, like airplane mode, that limits some of the phone’s capabilities but which in the case of the theatre would mean its complete silencing. It would not be for the first time that a member of the audience, entranced by the performance of an actress or by a phrase they have just heard, feels the urge to consult their programme sheet to find out who the actress is or to find the exact phrase they have just heard. Or to find out in which year theThe application of the new technologies to the performing arts is an opportunity to reach a wider public and to create new audiencesFOCUS 2014: THE USE OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN THE PERFORMING ARTSANALYSIS OF THE IMPACT OF THE NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN THE PERFORMING ARTS CURRENT PAGE...127