A Sea of
Screens
An event for creatively exploring the challenges & opportunities of audiences using their phones during live performances and immersive experiences.
Friday 28th November, 10am – 4pm
Daimler Powerhouse & The Nest, Coventry, UK
A Sea of
Screens
An event for creatively exploring the challenges & opportunities of audiences using their phones during live performances and immersive experiences.
Friday 28th November
10am – 4pm
Daimler Powerhouse & The Nest, Coventry, UK
Talks – Performances – Panel Discussions – Workshops
Do audience smartphones always break immersion in live events?
This event brings together artists, technologists and cultural sector professionals for critical discussion and creative exploration.
It’s a confusing time for smartphone users at live events. It’s incredibly common to see phones coming out at live music performances, in fact most festivals will encourage you to share and contribute content online to support the buzz around their event. But go to the theatre or cinema and it is still seriously frowned upon.
Across the immersive sector we find even more division. Spectacle-driven experiential projection events capitalise on their “Instagrammability”, yet if you go to an escape room you are normally asked to lock your phone away before entering for fear of breaking the immersion. Meanwhile other forms of immersive experience rely upon smartphone usage entirely, from self-guided audio tours to augmented reality exhibitions.
This event is being organised and delivered by Ludic Rooms as part of an Arts Council England supported programme of artist-led research and development.
FULL PROGRAMME TO BE ANNOUNCED VERY SOON
(but we can confirm that a hot lunch will be provided 🍲)
Provocations for the day
Should we follow or fight against existing audience behaviour?
More than half of British people surveyed say that they often second screen whilst watching TV, in 18-35 year olds this increases to nearly 70%.
70% of people surveyed say that they find it irritating when people take photos and videos at live music events... but nearly half of gig-goers do it.
Can we create new types of experience?
What artistic innovations can smartphones bring to the audience experience? From integrated augmented reality experiences that foster audience to audience interaction, to technologies that track audience journeys to provide personalised and customised narratives, to geolocated soundscapes that change to suit the audiences' surroundings. What is even possible?
A question of access
Smartphone use supports different people in different ways.
It is common for neurodivergent people to use smartphones for sensory and emotional self-regulation. Is banning their use exclusionary?
Smartphone tools like Talking Birds' Difference Engine can deliver closed captions where other solutions aren't possible.
Reducing environmental impact
Large scale event installations have large scale environmental impacts. Traditional audio visual approaches have high touring transit costs and use a lot of power, often from diesel generators; UK music festivals used 7 million litres of diesel in 2020.
Could utilising the power of devices already in audiences' pockets help lighten the load of the transportion and power requirements of outdoor arts?
Join the event
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We believe that free should mean free.
If you would like to contribute to the event but feel that there may be financial or other barriers that prevent you from doing so, please email admin@ludicrooms.com as we have Access Support and Bursary budget that may be able to reimburse you for costs incurred in attending.
About the event organisers
&Founded in 2009, Ludic Rooms are a socially engaged arts and technology non-profit based in Coventry, UK. We specialise in the development and delivery of immersive and playful experiences in outdoor and real-world spaces, alongside participatory programmes that demystify the use of technology as creative material, empowering communities to become co-creators of work and make a difference in the world around them.
We use technology in our practice but are fundamentally more interested in the human. We are not audience smartphone evangelists and want this event to be an open and inclusive exploration of the themes that invite input from a range of perspectives.
We have been interested in this issue for more than a decade. Over the years we have been involved in a range of research and development projects that have explored the role of smartphones in the design of audience-centric and participatory artistic work. This has included leading the Hypercinema Sprint programme for Coventry University (2014). Enact, our self-guided tour projects (2012 and 2013) were written up into this journal article about user agency and hybrid experiences. Our smartphone Augmented Reality projects have included bringing Redditch’s Paolozzi murals to life (2023) and Crewdson & Cevanne’s Rites for Crossing Water (2021) which was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award. More recently we have been revisiting these issues as part of our NAiAD programme, with R&D support from Arts Council England and InnovateUK.