Search Results (3)

Immersive theatre, as a contemporary performance form that integrates narrative, space, and sensory participation, has gradually expanded from entertainment consumption to a practice of cultural representation and memory construction. Audiences are no longer merely passive spectators but participate in the narrative through role-playing, situational interaction, and sensory triggers, thereby generating cultural identity and emotional memory. While existing research has preliminarily addressed the characteristics of immersive design and audience interaction, there remains a lack of in-depth exploration into how audiences, after the performance, come to develop cultural positional understanding and sustain memory through participatory practices. Drawing on three Taiwanese immersive productions with strong local cultural contexts—The Great Tipsy, Someone, and Ephemeral Light: Taiwan—this study employs participatory observation and content analysis as an exploratory qualitative inquiry. Findings indicate that audience subjectivity is shaped by role design and the degree of participatory freedom; the depth of interaction and cultural context within narrative strategies determine cultural reception; emotional triggers act as a catalyst for cultural memory construction; and the depth of immersion influences the intensity and continuity of post-performance cultural effects. The three works, respectively, embody “emotional,” “historical,” and “cognitive” modes of cultural influence, producing distinct levels of post-experiential effects. This study further reveals that the formation of cultural identity emerges from the interweaving of design strategies, affective triggers, and narrative participation. These insights not only inform immersive design practices but also suggest the importance of incorporating cultural aftereffect tracking and educational applications to extend the depth and breadth of cultural practice. Full article

Drawing on the inspiring work by Wacquant about apprenticeship in boxing, I present data generated from a five-year ethnographic study of one Wushu Kung Fu Association in Italy. Drawing on a Bourdieusian version of theories of social practice, the aim is to investigate in depth the relationship between habitus and materials, as it seems an underestimated issue both in Wacquant’s presentation and in most martial arts studies developed from his work. The aim is to explore the relationship between the practitioner and the set of weapons—a chief part of the martial art training—as an endless work of conditioning. To this aim, according to what Wacquant calls “enactive ethnography”, I completely immersed myself inside the fieldwork in order to be able to explore the phenomenon and to personally test its operative mechanism. The challenge here is to enter the theatre of action and, to the highest degree possible, train in the ways of the people studied so as to gain a visceral apprehension of their universe as materials and springboard for its analytic reconstruction. Drawing on the difference between the cognitive, conative, and emotive components of habitus through which, according to Bourdieu, social agents navigate social space and animate their lived world, I show how conditioning works not only on the conative or cognitive components (learning techniques and incorporating kinetic schemes), but how a deeper psychological form of conditioning also comes into play, which aims to neutralize the shock due to the fear generated by the threat of a contusion. It is at this point, therefore, that the affective component of the habitus becomes crucial in constructing a sort of intimacy bond with the tool. The detectable transformation in the habitus of the practitioner, eventually, can be deciphered, starting from the characteristics of the tool that produces, in the ways and limits given by its material features, such a transformation. In the end, I stress the relevance of recognizing the active role of objects in transforming the habitus and I briefly discuss the potentiality of enactive ethnography in analyzing social practices. Full article

‘Embodiment’ need not focus on isolated individuals or group interactions. This article articulates the potential for designs that prompt participants to bring relationships with other people to mind. These can be fleeting relationships between participants and unknown others, or remembered relationships with romantic partners, family members, or close friends who are not physically co-present or digitally represented. In either case, it is possible to generate affective responses that profoundly shape participants’ emotional and physical reactions to, and co-creation of, the designed interaction. This article presents existing practices of immersive theatre to frame our exploration of this phenomenon. It introduces three theories—mise-en-sensibilité, narcissistic spectatorship and affect—through which we illuminate both the internally felt and the externally designed experience, whether or not it is explicitly framed as theatrical performance. Through analysis of two immersive performances (one-on-one interactions that could easily be understood in terms of experience design) and two designs of our own, we argue that the affect generated by personal relationships in immersive experiences can both shape and drive participation, and we offer a three-point guideline by which one can design for the affective consequences of bringing relationships to mind. Full article