Project Introduction

Contents
1. Project Overview
2. Four Core Research Strands
3. General Concept
4. About the researcher

1. Project Overview

Ethereal Materials is a research project on the state of the theatrical event in the age of virtuality. The project asks what being there means in the context of performance today. It is conducted by Andrew Eglinton, a researcher in contemporary performance based in Kobe, Japan, and is funded by a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science grant (#24K03458).

The four keywords in the project’s subtitle, being and performance in virtual worlds, open up the following set of questions:

• What is a virtual world and what are its capacities?
• What does it mean to perform in a virtual world?
• What does it mean to “be there” in a performance in a virtual world?
• What is the material status of being in performances in virtual worlds?
• How are virtual practices changing the state of theatrical performance?
• What is the ethical state of performance in virtuality?

2. Four Core Research Strands

Reviews

Reviews of current performance work in VR and AR constitutes the first core strand of this research project. The purpose of these reviews is to map new work in VR performance and to reflect on the meaning and experience of participating in these works as an audience member.

Shards

Shards are a series of critical interventions into aspects of being in performance that crop up in reviewing new VR performance work. This is a space to explore some of the theoretical implications of new modes of digital performance practice.

Interviews

The interviews strand consist of dialogues with practitioners on their work with performance practices in VR. Through these interviews, the aim is to try and gain insight into how new materials affect working methodologies and vice versa.

Teaching

Part of the remit of Ethereal Materials is to apply the research to my teaching. This segment documents aspects of my use of VR and AR in my teaching in Japan. This is a form of reflective practice

The first major teaching project is Yuriwaka VR, an adaptation of a 16th century folk story into a mixed media VR installation with undergrad students in my research seminar at Konan Women’s University in Kobe, Japan.

3. General Concept

One of the most well-known lines in Shakespeare’s plays is Bernardo’s question at the beginning of Hamlet: “Who’s there?” Who is that ‘who’ and where is that ‘there’? It is a doorway onto doubt. But it is also a question that cuts quickly to the ontological core of theatre.

“Who’s there?” can be asked of the characters in the play, just as it can be asked of the actors who embody the characters on stage. Although, as Richard Schechner points out, “actors exist in the field of a double negative. They are not themselves, nor are they the characters they impersonate. A theatrical performance takes place between ‘not me…not not me.’ The actress is not Ophelia, but she is not not Ophelia” (64).

It can be asked of the playwright, who is twice removed from the play, while still lingering in the play’s wings. If text is what stands in for the absent author, then the actors on stage stand in for text and author, but also for themselves. This nexus alone epitomises “who’s there?”

It can be asked of the ‘world’ of the play that supports that ‘who’ and that ‘there’; the conventions of writing that structure that ‘world’ and the materials (human and non-human) that give it shape and life on stage.

It can be asked of the play’s ‘others,’ which are the other plays or ‘worlds’ with which it communicates, either through textual cross-reference, adaptation, translation, embodiment or other means of representation. The traces that remain from these interactions may not be readily recognisable, they may even circumvent the logic of the archive, but these minute shifts have a cumulative effect over time on the state of a play’s evolving identity. How many Hamlets are there in the world? Too many to count.

The question “Who’s there?” can also be asked of audiences, ‘who’ go ‘there’ to collude in the realisation of this dramatic ‘who’ and ‘there,’ and who participate in this ‘worlding’ experience.

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Ethereal Materials asks what “being there” might mean in the context of performance today. It is a research project on the ontological state of performance in an age of the digitalization of everything.

The four keywords in the project’s subtitle, “being and performance in virtual worlds,” function as starting points for a line of inquiry into this topic.

What constitutes a world in today’s digital context? What are its virtual capacities? What does it mean to perform in a virtual world? What does it mean “to be there” in a performance in a virtual world? What is the material status of being in performances in virtual worlds?

The scope of these questions is large. In order to maintain a grasp on this topic, the project will be based on the following methodology:

References

Schechner, Richard. Performance Studies: An Introduction. Routledge, 2002.

4. About the researcher

Originally from London, I grew up in France, and have been teaching contemporary British theatre at Konan Women’s University in Kobe since 2012. Prior to that, I was the Clive Barker research fellow at Rose Bruford College of theatre and performance from 2009 to 2011, and a visiting lecturer at NYU (London Branch) during the same period.

I completed an undergraduate degree in theatre and performance studies at Royal Holloway University of London in 2001. I participated in the Japan Teaching Exchange Program from 2001 to 2003 in Yokohama.

I was the recipient of a Japanese government postgraduate scholarship at the University of Tokyo from 2003-2005, which enabled me to begin studying contemporary Japanese theatre. I completed an MA degree in Dramaturgy and Writing for Performance at Goldsmiths College, University of London in 2007.

I have published essays on a range of contemporary performance topics, from documentary and immersive theatre in the UK, to site-specific and physical theatre in Japan. I am also a proponent of theatre in education, using theatre techniques towards second language acquisition.

I am a frequent contributor to the Japan Times stage sections, and I have co-translated plays for contemporary performing arts festivals and professional theatres in Japan, including works by Matsubara Shuntaro,  Tadasu Takamine, Juro Kara and Kumiko Ueda.