‘Delayed’ is a 20-minute immersive audio experience, placing the audience in the position of a woman travelling alone at night.

 

As five young women, this project developed from important Research and Development discussions relating to our own experiences of travelling on public transport, and the mental and physical distress this can cause. Our core argument developed from this discussion, questioning how we could encourage ‘active participation’ (Harvard Business Review 1998) in making the sphere of public transport safer, from a male audience who would not typically experience the female perspective. Leslie Kern’s Feminist City inspired a feminist geographical approach to creating this performance; trains are a “gendered symbol” of an “urban built environment” as they simultaneously make travel easier for men, yet their confines fail to consider the dangers of a woman traveling alone (Kern 2020).

 

From a methodological perspective, we have been drawing on DARKFIELD’s idea of forcing the audience to question ‘what is real’ (DARKFIELD). Inspired by their immersive shipping container performances, the audience will be in complete darkness to heighten the intensity of the audio experience, focusing in on one sense. We have been using professional-level tech software such as LogicPro and a binaural microphone to curate a highquality sound experience, that will immserse the audience in a hyper-realistic aural environment. We have continuously conducted listening sessions, receiving feedback from male participants to ensure we tailor the experience to our target demographic. Receiving this feedback has been key to ensuring our piece curated the desired effect of audience disorientation. This will not only encourage ‘active participation’ (Harvard Business Review 1998) through our final performance but throughout our entire creative process. Dramaturgically, we are questioning whether the heightening of a singular sense is able to engage the audience in our ‘conceptual, imaginative space’ (Machon 2013: 63). The purpose of our experience is to personalize the female perspective of traveling alone that not only exists in “the mind of the individual” (ref), but is a real and tangible danger. Our target audience, the demographic of males aged 20+, will be placed in the position of a woman travelling alone, as we were clear from the beginning that women already have phenomenological experience of this issue. Instead, we wanted to create an uncanny experience for men that would make them question their own position, present and future, in acknowledging and recognising the issues surrounding women’s safety at night.

 

Our location, St Stephen’s Church, currently host Exeter Safe Space; a volunteer-led night-out initiative, which opens the Church as a safe hub between 2am and 5am for those who feel unsafe on a night-out, which directly relates to the issues explored in our piece. ‘Delayed’ follows a train journey from St James Park to Exeter St David’s; our experience is therefore physically and metaphorically located within the heart of the city. The audience should be left questioning whether the POV character in the piece would ever reach a safe space, whether that be physically or metaphorically, after the events of ‘Delayed’. The outcome of our practical essay will depend on the audience’s reaction to understand how this experience has affected them. Placing the audience in a position of ‘active participation’ (Harvard Business Review 1998) will hopefully surpass the aim of raising awareness, and instead work as an active catalyst for change, aligning our work with our research, influences and the context within which we are engaging.

 

Bibliography:

● DARKFIELD, DARKFIELD RADIO, Available at: https://www.darkfield.org/, [Accessed on: 10th February 2023]

● Frieze, James. Palgrave Macmillan The Promise of Experience: Immersive Theatre in the Experience Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, (2017). The Promise of Experience: Immersive Theatre in the Experience Economy, Available at: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/978-1-137-36604-7_19 [Accessed 1 st February 2022]

● Harvard Business Review. “Welcome to the Experience Economy.” Welcome to the Experience Economy, 1998, Available at: (http://mktgsensei.com/AMAE/Customer%20Satisfaction/Expereince%20Marketing/Experience%20Eco nomy%20and%20Marketing.pdf.) [Accessed 31st January 2022.]

● Kern, L. (2020) Feminist City, Brooklyn : Verso

● Machon, J (2013) Immersive Theatres: Intimacy and Immediacy in Contemporary Performance, London: Palgrave

● Smiler, A. (2019) Is Masculinity Toxic? A Primer for the 21st Century, Thames & Hudson