Adaptive Sense-Making: The Effects of Sensory Modification on Audience Perception

This study investigates contemporary immersive, participatory, and interactive performance to evaluate the affective and perceptual effects of manipulating audience members’ sensory experience. It takes as its starting point my subjective, phenomenological experience of a one-to-one performance that centred on holding hands, which prompted critical reflection about ways of systematically observing, evaluating, and categorizing discrete effects of intimate, sensory-focused dramaturgical strategies within a performance research context. By bringing into conversation knowledge from perception research, theory of mind, and performance studies, I establish a framework for investigating the relationship between artistic intentions and audience experience. Building on established Practice-Based Research methods, my dissertation develops a distinct, experimental model for testing the effects of “sensory modification.” It is informed by eight artist interviews connected to seven different case study productions that foreground sensory experience. Through three sets of comparative one-to-one performance experiments facilitated by five actors, I gathered qualitative data from seventy-four volunteer participants about their physical, sensory, and affective experiences. These outcomes reveal trends in how audience members respond to sensory modification: it impacts their perception of properties of space, their attention to live versus recorded sounds, their body awareness, their relationship to the performer, and the quality of their affective and imaginative experiences. My engagement with this topic is ultimately dramaturgical in nature. The value of my observations lies in extractable utility, where key discoveries can be used in both creation and analysis of performance. Through its focused articulation of process-oriented methodology and outcomes, this study presents a robust and multifaceted approach for accessing knowledge about the complex dynamics of contemporary, sensory-focused performance. This inquiry is timely for its consideration of how we think critically about alternative ways to perceive artistic work and how the physical presence and activity of audiences generates and informs innovative experiential performance.Ph.D.2020-11-16 00:00:0