{"title":"Digital Drama: A Snapshot of Evolving Forms","authors":"John Carroll","doi":"10.1080/17508480209556409","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"I'd like to start with a personal confession that positions (or skewers) me in relation to the following discussion of digital drama. Taking note of Denzin's focus on the 'narrative turn in interpretative ethnography, I recall leaving a National Drama Conference in Canberra some years ago to visit the nearby cinema multiplex. I went to see 'Terminator 2' starring Arnold Swarzenegger and a range of digital special effects. Arnold plays a cyborg with no moral sensibility and no pain threshold. However, he does possess a very appealing sense of mission. His job involved him in protecting a young boy he has been sent back from the future to save. If this time paradox does not make sense I suggest you hire the DVD, get in some popcorn and watch it for yourself! However, you really had to be there for the big screen, the Dolby Surround sound and the audience participation. It was clear from their responses that the young audience had no trouble with the space/time paradox and, at the moment of Arnold's supreme sacrifice, a sense of cartharsis was plainly and appreciatively evident in the theatre. I returned to the Drama conference for the next session of papers and workshops to discuss my enthusiasm for drama, computers and cyberspace with the delegates. I ended up engaged in an animated, if somewhat sceptical, discussion with the editor of this very edition of the journal! There is an ambivalence towards technology in the educational community that is commonly expressed through a series of oppositional positions common in our culture. One of the dualities clearly present in our schools is the tension existing between drama and technology. This is usually expressed through the structuralist terms of film analysis derived from the work of Levi-Strauss and others. It was certainly evident in my discussion with other drama teachers at the conference. The fact that some people would set technology and drama in opposition is evidence of the lingering tension still carried in the educational system. This tension is usually expressed through binary opposites such as: Drama versus Technology, Art versus Industry, Sensitivity versus Brutalism and High Culture versus Low Culture. These dualities are a reflection of the still current modernist views that position educated people as 'sensitively attuned' to high culture drama or alternatively sees","PeriodicalId":347655,"journal":{"name":"Melbourne Studies in Education","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2002-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"23","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Melbourne Studies in Education","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17508480209556409","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 23
Abstract
I'd like to start with a personal confession that positions (or skewers) me in relation to the following discussion of digital drama. Taking note of Denzin's focus on the 'narrative turn in interpretative ethnography, I recall leaving a National Drama Conference in Canberra some years ago to visit the nearby cinema multiplex. I went to see 'Terminator 2' starring Arnold Swarzenegger and a range of digital special effects. Arnold plays a cyborg with no moral sensibility and no pain threshold. However, he does possess a very appealing sense of mission. His job involved him in protecting a young boy he has been sent back from the future to save. If this time paradox does not make sense I suggest you hire the DVD, get in some popcorn and watch it for yourself! However, you really had to be there for the big screen, the Dolby Surround sound and the audience participation. It was clear from their responses that the young audience had no trouble with the space/time paradox and, at the moment of Arnold's supreme sacrifice, a sense of cartharsis was plainly and appreciatively evident in the theatre. I returned to the Drama conference for the next session of papers and workshops to discuss my enthusiasm for drama, computers and cyberspace with the delegates. I ended up engaged in an animated, if somewhat sceptical, discussion with the editor of this very edition of the journal! There is an ambivalence towards technology in the educational community that is commonly expressed through a series of oppositional positions common in our culture. One of the dualities clearly present in our schools is the tension existing between drama and technology. This is usually expressed through the structuralist terms of film analysis derived from the work of Levi-Strauss and others. It was certainly evident in my discussion with other drama teachers at the conference. The fact that some people would set technology and drama in opposition is evidence of the lingering tension still carried in the educational system. This tension is usually expressed through binary opposites such as: Drama versus Technology, Art versus Industry, Sensitivity versus Brutalism and High Culture versus Low Culture. These dualities are a reflection of the still current modernist views that position educated people as 'sensitively attuned' to high culture drama or alternatively sees