Kim Flintoff B.A.(Drama
Studies) Murdoch Grad Dip Ed
(Secondary Drama) Edith Cowan
John Forrest Senior High School
Kim Flintoff is the creator, moderator and maintainer of the DramaWest website and the international email discussion list. Formerly the first Technology Officer of DramaWest (The Drama Teachers Association of Western Australia) Kim teaches high school Drama in Western Australia and has an extensive background in theatre production. While currently examining the implications of technology and virtual domains in educational Drama, Kim is also interested in NLP, Brain-based and Accelerated Learning Applications in Drama. Kim worked as a clown/magician for several years, is co-founder and former chairman of Class Act Theatre (Theatre-in-Education) and founder and present chairman of SHY (Seen and Heard Youth) a newly-formed youth arts organization in WA. Kim has recently accepted the position of Director of Technology for Drama Australia.
Welcome
Before I start I’d like to thank the QADIE
committee and Shay Ryan for inviting me to speak today. It’s an exciting development in my career
and an honour to feel that the ponderings of a classroom Drama teacher are
regarded as valuable. Interestingly and
tellingly, my own employer has never enquired about what it is that I do when
I’m running around to conferences and leading groups. I’ve never been asked to formally deliver anything relating to
this work to EDWA teachers. So I thank
you for this opportunity and hope that I can prompt you to consider your own
position in this field.
Rationale
In Drama education we are faced with the challenge of relevancy. The nature of theatrical form is changing as we begin to explore the intersection of technology, culture, and nature. Cyberspace, with its apparent offerings of vicarious and disembodied experience, poses challenges to the field of Drama studies. Classroom drama traditionally presupposes the physical and the verbal, focussing heavily on role; in virtual reality these presuppositions are cast in a new light and demand that new questions be asked.
We are re-creating
nature: the boundaries between the virtual and real are becoming increasingly
confused. The interface is becoming increasingly important in our
experience – we are still dealing with artificial, clumsy computer interface
and yet we strive for the unencumbered, the unconscious, fully interactive
experience. The pretence of the
virtual is insinuated into our lives on a daily basis- when you make telephone
calls are you aware whether or not you are speaking to a person or a cleverly
constructed piece of software. Is that
actor in a movie a real person or a carefully compiled composite created in an
advanced graphics suite?
Soon, if we are to
believe the techno-boffins, the "implosion" of culture and nature
will allow us to redesign bodies that will not only be genetically "ideal”
but will also reconfigure our conceptions of the perfect body. We will with
horrifying precision be able to control what survives and what is deleted (and
what constitutes life and death) in our virtual-real surroundings. <SLIDE> Artists like Stelarc
have already begun these investigations with the addition of “hardware” – he
asserts that our soft bodies are obsolete.
There is a range of
freely available “intelligent agents”; software programs that attempt to
replicate human intelligence. More and
more we find ourselves interacting with machines that seem to mimic human
processes. I believe these interactions
once again raise the questions that were addressed by the Turing Test1. In
Drama we often seem to have a predetermined, yet unstated, concept of human
intelligence. We base our activities on
these presumptions; yet there is now a new player. Computer generated agents
(metaphorically brought to life in the film The Matrix) lurk in
all virtual arenas and defy us to identify them. Even as I wrote I this article I became cyborg2, a human-machine hybrid. The nexus between human and machine is
pervasive, and Drama education can play a role in exploring these developments.
We are already
"cyborgs": and by “cyborgs” I refer to any interface that connects us
with man-made technology. The
artificial and the "real" are no longer divided by clear boundaries.
Human/machine, nature/culture, virtual/real, object/subject, male/female: technology disrupts boundaries, and,
hopefully, encourages us to see socially constructed aspects of our perceived
reality. A constantly shifting morphology reigns here, but, because we can't be
sure of anything anymore, so does paranoia.
Hence, in terms of this
speech, whenever we are engaging with technology we are pursuing uncertain
benefits. The outcomes are not
predictable; the possibilities are not necessarily positive if we hold our
current mindset. We need to develop a new way of seeing and questioning; one
that allows us to transcend our present perceptual limitations, we need to be
more aware of the “big picture” and our place in it.
The purpose of this paper is to propose a position of tolerance and exploration towards the introduction of Learning Technologies into the established classroom practices of educational Drama. I advocate that a variety of studies and investigations are necessary to explore the possibilities, scope and efficacy of utilizing emergent interactive technologies in classroom Drama within Australia.
At the same time that the theatrical stage has welcomed the offerings of the new technologies and is exploring new notions and forms of representation, subjectivity, mediation, etc. it seems sometimes in classroom drama that we are still doing the same as we’ve done for the past 30 years.
<SLIDE> There is an old adage that if you do what you always do you’ll get what you always get.
I hope to relate some of my observations, perceptions and speculations not only about possible approaches to beginning to explore ways of utilizing computers in Drama education but also to consider some of the responses and attitudes that I have experienced over the past few years. I make no claims to having any deep insights, nor do I offer any particular answers, although what I can do is offer some challenges, arguments for the experimentation and further study within this area, and some necessarily speculative – possibly spurious – ideas about strategies.
The title of the paper “The Pursuit of Uncertain Benefits” raises the question of what it is that we gain from the introduction of Learning Technologies. Will educational Drama be better as a result? What are the “educationally favourable” connections between Drama praxis and the “New Media”?
Last year I was a joint facilitator of Special Interest Group #7 at the IDEA World Congress in Norway; working alongside Klaus Thestrup from Denmark and Liliàna Galvan from Peru. The focus of our group was Drama and New Media. An interesting side note is that until we met in Bergen, the three of us had never met or even spoken to each other. Our entire collaboration was conducted by way of the Internet. For something close to 7 months we exchanged emails and files without knowing how the other person looked or sounded.
We organized all our activities and planned the structure and proceedings without any face-to-face interaction. I met Klaus the day before our group met for the first time and it was like catching up with a long time colleague. Liliana arrived shortly before we started the next day.
At that time, around 35 participants, including academics, drama teachers, theatre-in-education practitioners, interactive project developers and performers, came together to consider issues relating to Drama and New Media. Not surprisingly this group of people brought a wide range of perspectives and opinions to the group. One of the most poignant pleas came from an experienced Dutch drama teacher who voiced a concern held by many others in the room, but were too afraid to utter. <SLIDE>
What
about my ******* job? And yes I did delete an
expletive!
His concern was genuine. His fear was real. His knowledge, he admitted, was also quite limited when it came to the possibilities of using technology. His view of the situation, like many through history, was that the emerging technology would somehow leave him redundant, a relic of the heady days of Dorothy Heathcote and Gavin Bolton, desperately trying to find relevancy in a generation born to digital and disembodied representation.
As the week progressed it became apparent that there was a wide range of misgivings regarding the introduction of computers. The interesting thing was that there seemed to be an equal degree of fascination with the potential. It was almost as if people wanted to believe that there were benefits but thought it might be wishful thinking. The most positive thing I noticed was that despite the fears and uncertainty there was a willingness to consider possibilities and to learn.
<SLIDE>
Janet Murray in her introduction to “Hamlet on the Holodeck” states that:
“The birth of a new medium of communication is both exhilarating and frightening. Any industrial technology that dramatically extends our capabilities also makes us uneasy by challenging our concept of humanity itself. ”
I firmly believe that as educators we need to remind ourselves that learning means negotiating the potential discomfort of the unfamiliar. In Drama we constantly demand our students engage in risk taking. In few other school subjects are the outcomes of your effort so visible and public; it is possible in most other learning areas at school to fail in private – a Mathematics test or English essay can be exclusively in the domain of student-teacher confidentiality; in Drama, on the other hand, our explorations in performance are nearly always shared experiences witnessed by peers. Not making the grade can be a very public affair; trust can be paramount. And I suspect this is one reason we find many people seemingly terrified by the prospect of working in role – even amongst Drama teachers there are many who steadfastly refuse to work in role – to be explicitly engaged in the “physical presence” we come to expect in theatre. And these same teachers seem to be suspicious of promise of a technology that can offer alternatives to, and perhaps an escape from, the limitations of physical reality.
In Norway our discussions were not aimed necessarily at promoting any form of mandatory engagement with technology but rather to pose questions about the possibilities. None of us were totally convinced that Drama would benefit from the fruits of the digital age. What we did seek to do was to elicit useful questions that might guide and shape our exploration of the use of technology.
Since returning to our respective countries Klaus, Liliana and I have continued our collaboration to write a combined article about the findings and issues raised by the SIG. If this type of collaboration is possible for us; then why not for our students? It is not because we don’t have the technology, every high school in WA (and presumably in most other states) has the requisite hardware; it’s not because it is beyond the capability of our students, they engage in more sophisticated computer interactions using Internet Relay Chat, ICQ and other systems; it does seem however that this type of interaction is outside the scope of imagination of many drama teachers.
(And in my experience within schools the type of interactivity useful to Drama projects is alien to Systems Administrators. Happy to engage with office suites, spreadsheets, web browsing they seem to think that this provides enough opportunities for students to become proficient in a wide range of applications – but we are seeking more than simply knowing how to use a particular program - we want our students to understand the relationship between themselves and the technology, to ask questions about identity, to find connections between modes of presentation that are afforded in the real and virtual worlds. The types of interactive systems we could most benefit from are also the ones that frighten education systems – communicating in real-time via the internet requires opening up networks, allowing students to be responsive, and in terms of immediacy there is risk taking involved. The risks are amplified when teachers are less familiar with the processes than the students. We must start to become proficient with technology if Drama is going to engage fully with the possibilities of our “technological era”.)
Let’s get back to the discussions in Norway.
The scope of the questions covered everything from the mundane practicalities of how might a drama teacher begin to work with “learning technologies” through to academic, sociological and philosophical issues relating to identity, representation, communication, meaning making, narrative and the future of drama. What are the possibilities? How can computers, the Internet, the seemingly impersonal mask that comes from engaging via a computer interface – the ability to hide behind a mask without the risk of physical presence – improve the lot of a Drama teacher. Surprisingly, one of the possibilities suggested that the anonymity offered by computer-mediated communication might be the very thing that draws new participants to Drama.
In a
process of change and transition, questions are more important than answers.
·
Can a
drama teacher find deeper meaning in digital world?
·
What
is drama teacher competence in digital/pop culture environment?
·
What
is the story we want to tell?
·
How
will/does dramatic narrative operate in virtual environments?
·
What
is the discipline of the digital space?
·
What
are the technical and symbolic codes of the digital?
·
What
is the narrative of digital world?
·
Is it
authentic to construct a new identity on screen?
· What new paradigms are offered up by these new interactions?
<SLIDE> Briefly discuss some of the titles shown on screen <SLIDE>
The range of titles and
studies cover an enormous range of considerations. It is not surprising that some teachers have difficulty finding
relevance for Drama education when the scope of technological based concerns
covers such things as:
How many of us were prepared for these developments when we chose to become teachers. Do we know the difference between hypertext, interactive fiction, hyperdrama, cyberdrama, drama enacted within shared environments or online text-based drama? The lingua franca has shifted well beyond the old “theatre-drama” debates of David Hornbrook and Gavin Bolton.
Sure, we know we need to constantly revise and extend our understanding, but how do we do that in a world where the material published on the internet in any one day would take a single person some 5-7 years to negotiate? Not surprisingly, some teachers expressed a concern that they felt overwhelmed and bewildered at the array of technology oriented books and studies and sought fruitlessly for material specifically related to Drama education. And to date there is still a dearth of this type of material. <SLIDE> Entry-level material seems to be in short supply yet the scope of investigations globally is enormous, with many projects well beyond the reach of even the most forward-thinking and well-resourced school Arts faculty. Even Australian universities are struggling to provide resources to research programs in this area. I’ll mention some of the interesting explorations being undertaken around the world as this presentation progresses.
Interestingly, one of the texts I found most useful is one of the earliest books written on the subject. <SLIDE> Jonathan Neelands “Drama and IT” remains one of the clearest introductions to the possibilities of Drama and technology, despite being woefully dated in terms of the level of technology; to the extent that it does not really address networked machines or the internet. Given that it was written nearly 10 years ago it is unsettling to discover that the recommendations Jonathan made seem to be the same issues we are still struggling with today.
He asserted that IT should be an essential part of creative and imaginative learning. From my own experience I tend to concur, although there are still some obstacles to be negotiated.
Anyway, back to the Special Interest Group in Norway.
We enlisted the assistance of Paul Sutton from C&T in England to demonstrate a Drama project called “The Adverb Project” (it came to be known as “Cambat”) that utilized a website, an online interface to mediate student exploration and development of issue-based drama activities. The issue was the contentious (in the eyes of young people in Britain) introduction of CCTV cameras in public places. It revealed a situation where young people were able express their concerns and point out that public space is private space to young people. Young people identified with and claimed territorial rights to public and vacant spaces. Contrary to the ideals of private ownership of property, the young people asserted that much of their social interaction was necessarily conducted in places that were ostensibly “public” but unused, such as vacant blocks and public spaces. They saw the introduction of cameras as a very real treat to their ability to engage in private (and sometimes intimate) relationships with friends.
Using the technology of streaming video and based on the premise that one way to reclaim power is to watch the watcher… students explored a scenario where a security officer was misusing the technology at his disposal; his “weapon” of surveillance was turned back on him by those he was watching. Students accessed a bogus but apparently real corporate website of a slightly dodgy security firm called ADV Security Systems. By exploring the website students could find (or be guided towards) a loophole in the online secure site and gain access to confidential files. From the outset, students are able to engage in role if they choose, the discovery can be played out as a drama. Slowly, students find more and more archives, internal investigation files and video evidence of the breaches of protocol. It eventuates that someone has stolen a new generation remote CCTV camera and is taking charge of what it sees, finally the offending security officer finds himself under scrutiny and out of control.
C&T offered this project as a community and school-based project that led into more traditional drama activities to explore the issues and possibilities. In and of itself it represents a simple Drama and IT project. The “Cambat” project could be easily replicated by any teacher with a clear understanding of the processes involved, some basic technical skills and some basic technology. The concept could be applied to a range of issues and used as an alternative to existing modes of interaction. The technologies involved are likely to be familiar with many students, especially boys.
One thing that this project revealed is that the mutually improvised development of dramatic narrative remains intact. Many traditional pre-programmed role-playing games available on games consoles or PC CDROM or via the internet in MUDs and MOOs (textual virtual environments accommodating multiple users) while allowing a degree of explorative play essentially dictate the journey. There is a new generation of games and virtual worlds that allow the players to engage in a manner that might be very familiar to drama teachers. Janet Murray states:
“Role-playing games are theatrical in a non-traditional but thrilling way. Players are both actors and audience for one another, and the events they portray often have the immediacy of personal experience”
As I mentioned earlier the people present in our group had a wide range of perceptions about the use of technology. Liliana Galvan compiled some of the responses and I’d like to address some of those perceptions now.
<SLIDE>
Discuss some elements of the slides.
Pause to speculate on the inserts.
Many opinions were expressed in the negative – perhaps revealing an underlying suspicion about the use of technology, or perhaps our culture has developed an innate negativity towards change. With some prompting however we were able to remind the participants that a single viewpoint is anathema to the digital, post-modern world in which we live. Eventually it was conceded that there is likely to be a continuum of perceptions and any single circumstance may be seen to inhabit multiple positions long a continuum of favourability.
The perceptual frame within which an individual or group of teachers operates will either limit or expand the possibilities. I’m willing to assert that it is our responsibility as teachers and academics to develop an awareness of our perceptual position. This is exactly what we are asking students to do every time they reflect on their work; we insist that they identify the subjective nature of their experience.
Can students engage in the “authentic” expression and construction of a self-concept (identity), and an awareness of community, through arts practice, specifically Drama, enacted in virtual reality? Is changing your online persona “authentic”? How is it different from dramatic role-play? Is it “authentic” to construct a new identity on screen? Is this legitimate self-expression? Could it be “art”? To what degree is the interactivity a community building process? When I utter “I” on stage, in role or in real life, the persona is localised in the physical entity of my body. In Virtual Reality is this still the case?
Computers before
the Drama
There are a range of ways that computers can be used before the Drama, that is to say in the planning or creating stage of dramatic process. These uses tend to be at the more mundane level of engagement, but nonetheless offer novel and interesting ways of approaching traditional practice.
Computers during
the Drama
Computers can be used during Drama engagement in a variety of ways, some are quite common and we seldom think twice about, others are more recent developments that may not have been explored by many practitioners and students.
… armed with minimal knowledge and a decrepit old Amiga 500, some simple text animation software, a music composition program, a candle and a lot of wishful thinking I developed the presentation/workshop with my study partner. We drew upon one of the ideas in Drama and IT; adapting as best we could given the very different circumstances. We used the computer to construct a scenario of messages coming from the future warning us about an impending disaster. With our peers functioning as our students we conducted the session, tapping into rhythmic movement, ritualised patterns of behaviour, role play, improvisation and story-telling to engage in a Drama that eventually saved the planet – all the while having our progress and discoveries mediated by a computer program8.
Computers after
the Drama
In similar fashion to the “before” uses some opportunities here may seem simple alternatives to existing practice.
Computers in the Drama
Like any other physical item, computers can be brought into the drama space, they can become an integral part of the “playing”, and this can occur in the following ways:
Drama in
the Computer (Virtual Spaces)
This seems to be the area that most concerns Drama practitioners and yet is also the area that has likely not been explored to its fullest extent. It causes us to ask questions about the very nature of our subject. What happens to drama when it is removed from the physical and temporal – does Drama still happen if it can somehow occur independent of the here and now? As Drama practitioners we are forced into confronting some fundamental and almost metaphysical dilemmas, such as what is the value of physical presence? What happens to Drama if it is transformed to textual interaction via an electronic interface?
It challenges us to discover the degrees of virtuality – what’s practical, what’s possible? What have we left to discover? What elements would need to be present in an interface that does help us to relate? What are the elements of Drama as found in cyberspace – beyond the interface, what else is present? To what extent can Virtual Reality be considered “incomplete" compared to Real Life?
Virtually represented characters (or intelligent agents) – it is possible for actors to reduce their virtual presence to text, 2D avatar graphics, realtime or pre-programmed 3D motion capture – the body can be reduced to electronic representation – it can vanish into the virtual ether and be re-presented in a totally digitally reconstructed form (it can include all aspects, body, voice, movement, gesture and expression)
While the “real” exploration of the potential of the virtual in Drama education continues to be considered I think this forum’s theme of “Left Blank Intentionally” a is a suitable metaphor for the current state of practice in the area of Drama and computers. It reminds us that our limited exploration to date is not an accidental omission, somehow we need to be certain that we have deliberately reserved judgement.
We do not know enough about the possibilities to be able to dismiss out of hand the learning opportunities that may exist by engaging with the new technologies. We are not yet able to engage in the totally immersive Virtual Reality of Lawnmower Man, Virtuosity and Johnny Mnemonic. We are not all the way there, but we have certainly begun the journey. We operate at the interface, we interact within the liminality of the interface, and we are in that “space” betwixt and between the virtual and the real. Our experiences of the virtual are still embodied in the present body. Despite the relocation of the “I” of the actor in role to a conceptual and negotiated “cyberspace”, the actor and indeed, any audience still experience the performance in the “real”.
I don’t think the use of computers in Drama has to be a daunting prospect. I think it unavoidable that Drama teachers must develop a wide range of technical competence. We must be flexible in our thinking about what it is we do. We must learn to be wantonly curious about alternatives, about what are the positive outcomes. We must continue to negotiate with students to allow them to discover and explore their own abilities and interests through Drama. We have to broaden our scope – what are we really offering in Drama education – the future of computer games is going to be changed by those who understand dramatic narrative and can translate that into terms that Playstation programmers can work with. We need to be comfortable that sometimes the end point is not obvious; our work will sometimes have us stepping into uncharted territory. We need to document and share our experiences. We need to stay focussed on the positive.
We may well be able to engage with “computer representations” in place of bodies but surely our bodies are still where they have always been and our experience, knowledge and emotion stems from and returns to the physical body regardless of what negotiated environment our interactions occur within. In computer mediated interactions we are still engaged with each other – whether we be real or highly sophisticated software systems seems to me to be irrelevant. I ask, does it matter – does virtuality change the essential quality of my experience – I can have connections to books, pets, stuffed toys and develop strong emotional responses to the presence or absence of any of them – why is it somehow “inferior” to acknowledge that I can have REAL responses to situations and events that occur via CMC (computer-mediated communication).
I am fascinated by these issues and believe our students have every right to engage with them – and what better forum than a Drama class, where the very fabric of our subject is human embodiment.
For the time being our bodies are in place, but the work of such people as Ray Kurzweil (The Age of Spiritual Machines) and Australian artist, Stelarc certainly challenge the importance of the “soft body”, claiming it may well be redundant. This concerns me as well, but my interest lies more with he ability of Drama to “humanise” the existing and emerging interfaces. What can we do as Drama teachers to ensure that the inevitable use of technology offers opportunities for our students to enhance “the physical, emotional, intellectual, aesthetic, social, moral and spiritual dimensions of human experience”?