What

Immersive theatre is an exciting frontier of entertainment where the ordinary rules of theatre don’t apply. At the start of a new venture, we have an opportunity to think about how accessibility and inclusivity can be baked in to our creations in a way that feels true and not tacked on. When the rules are thrown out the window, what can we achieve?

Why

Immersive theatre provides and opportunity to bend and play with our sensory experiences. A drama group comprised of blind and partially sighted people were putting on a performance of the Victorian novella Flatland, and the show would take place entirely in the dark. This provided and chance to explore how more equitable spaces would be occupied by users with mixed sight levels. And how technology could support and enhance this experience.

Action

I created technology pieces that relied on tactile input and output that could be interacted with whilst listening to the audio of the theatre piece.

I knew my research would require a focus group to gather the participants’ thoughts and feelings after each performance but knew that group think, and the confident majority might be issues when trying to listen to everyone’s view point. To mitigate this, I constructed an accessible table cloth, with inlaid zips that connected to an arduino to record responses, like a tactile likert scale. The table cloth played tones back to indicate how everyone in the group felt, highlighting agreement and discord in a way that was accessible to everyone.

Impact

We discovered new understandings of how sensory hierarchies can affect the way that users take in information. We saw that technology has a huge responsibility to “look after” its users and in critical situations, small failures can feel catastrophic.

We recorded the feelings and responses of blind people and asked important questions about the future of technology and immersive theatre in terms of how accessibility can be designed for in such a way that it becomes part of the creative piece.

The table cloth made the focus groups fun and more equitable than and facilitator could have. It was accessible to every participant and helped people not only reflect on their answers to questions, but allowed everyone’s voice to be heard.