Online theatre as a research tool

Time
1 March 2021 – 28 February 2022

Goal
The Covid-19 crisis made it impossible for the performers and the audience to be physically present in the same space. Theatres started to look for the possibilities to perform online, and elektron.art was one of the first platforms to provide a virtual venue for performing artists. The biggest problem of online theatre is the lack of real-time communication between the audience and the performers, making it hard to assess the success of the virtual performance without knowing how the audience felt during the show.

This experimental project aims to develop a framework where new software tools and methods allow to construct online performances based on the audience engagement index (AEI). To measure audience engagement, the team mainly focuses on facial affect recognition based on analysing the viewer's webcam footage. The resulting AEI will be used for creating and analysing new online performances during two semesters at Viljandi Culture Academy. The project will assess the feasibility of a new service extending beyond performing arts to evaluate user experiences in various online services and events.

Cooperation partners
The project is funded from the University of Tartu development fund under the Feasibility Fund measure. The financial volume of the project is 32,619 euros.

The team includes Lecturer of Performing Arts Multimedia of the UT Viljandi Culture Academy Taavet Jansen, neuroscientist Aleksander Väljamäe and Project and Development Coordinator of the UT Viljandi Culture Academy Anu Almik. Students and teaching staff of the Performing Arts curriculum of the UT Viljandi Culture Academy are also involved. The team cooperates with Andres Kuusik from the UT Laboratory of Neuromarketing, and a very important role is performed by Hugo Silva and Patrícia Botaga – Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT-LISBOA) and the team of Elektron.art.