Audience empathy: a phenomenological method for mediated performance

Abstract

This research investigates audience experience of empathy with a performer during a digitally mediated performance. Theatrical performance necessitates social interaction between performers and audience. We present a performance-based study that explores audience awareness of performer's kinaesthetic activity in 2 ways: by isolating the audience's senses (visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic) and by focusing audience perception through defamiliarization. By positioning the performer behind the audience: in their 'backspace', we focus the audience's attention to the performer in an unfamiliar way. We describe two research contributions to the study of audience empathic experience during performance. The first is the development of a phenomenological interview method designed for extracting empirical evaluations of experience of audience members in a performance scenario. The second is a descriptive model for a poetics of reception. Our model is based on an empathetic audience-performer relationship that includes 3 components of audience awareness: contextual, interpersonal, and sense-based. Our research contributions are of particular benefit to performances involving digital media, and can provide insight into audience experience of empathy.