PXR2020: Re-Seeing the Possibilities of Theatre in Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality

Abstract

Abstract:What new insights and opportunities does virtual reality (VR) offer to theatre and performance? In turn, what potential might theatre offer to VR creators? This potentially fruitful cross-pollination was precisely what prompted host organizations Single Thread Theatre Company and Electric Company Theatre to program the inaugural Performance and XR Symposium in October 2020, a conference designed to foster and explore the relationship between theatre and XR (a catch-all term for media created with virtual, augmented, and mixed reality). The experience of the conference was one of re-seeing the possibilities of performance in a new media form: discussions around access, spectatorship, and ethics—topics familiar to and well trodden by theatre artists and scholars—were reinvigorated in the context of virtual reality.