{"id":2939,"date":"2016-04-25T17:57:28","date_gmt":"2016-04-25T17:57:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/?p=2939"},"modified":"2016-06-02T18:07:09","modified_gmt":"2016-06-02T18:07:09","slug":"alec-sarche-17-pushes-the-limits-of-experiential-art-with-audio-dramas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/2016\/04\/25\/alec-sarche-17-pushes-the-limits-of-experiential-art-with-audio-dramas\/","title":{"rendered":"Alec Sarche \u201917 Pushes the Limits of Experiential Art with Audio Dramas"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Montana Bass \u201918<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a mix of creativity and innovation, Alec Sarche \u201917 has reinvented the theatre experience with his audio dramas. Inspired by post-modern designers who weight their work more to the audience\u2019s experience than actors\u2019 performances, Sarche created a situation in which the audience becomes the actor, participating in his theatre themselves, all without their sense of sight.<\/p>\n

Sarche says he was inspired to create an environment where the audience could witness and interact with art. \u201cArt is becoming more and more \u2018make of it what you will,\u2019 or \u2018it\u2019s your thing not ours;\u2019 I wanted to take that as far as I could and make something completely designed by my audience,\u201d Sarche says of his original idea to create the audio drama. He decided to take away sight and designed a soundscape that would guide witnesses, a term he ironically coined to describe the participants in his theatre. While witnesses listen to the soundscape, blindfolded, Sarche and his facilitators move physical objects with which the witnesses interact at specific moments dictated by Sarche and his soundscape.<\/p>\n

His first audio theatre, \u201cShore and Woods,\u201d led witnesses towards a fan with the sound of ocean waves playing in their ears. As they moved through the room, Sarche brushed them with branches. The branches acted as an axis prop, the object Sarche uses as the center of his drama. \u201cI tend to write these based around the tactile experience,\u201d he says. \u201cI think about what would be interesting to touch without seeing. If you touch a tree and feel bark and branches, can you picture it?\u201d<\/p>\n

The answer turned out to be a resounding \u201cyes,\u201d as witnesses reported seeing vivid scenes in their mind\u2019s eye. \u201cThey came up with this incredible rich environment in their heads,\u201d Sarche explains. Even more interesting: the vast difference in the scenes witnesses described, exemplifying the variety of ways their minds interacted with Sarche\u2019s invented world. \u201cEven though you know the script,\u201d says Tinka Avramova \u201917, who worked as a facilitator on Sarche\u2019s set, \u201cit changes every time because each new person relates to the directions differently. There is such a rush when something goes right, when someone lets out a laugh or smile. There is this whole world that I get to see as the operator, but somehow I can\u2019t help but feel that the blindfolded audience is actually seeing even more in their imagination.\u201d<\/p>\n

During Block 7, Sarche\u2019s final audio drama of the year, \u201cNew Season,\u201d pushed the possibilities of this new approach to theatre even further by including two witnesses who move their way through two different, intertwined audiotracks simultaneously. \u201cOne track was more optimistic, the other more pessimistic,\u201d says Sarche. \u201cThey thought they had the same experience while they listen to the soundscape, but then when talking together, they realized they had this completely different idea of what they thought was the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The differing impressions of the two witnesses highlight the powerful psychological results of Sarche\u2019s work. Just as these witnesses were awakened to the misguidedness of their assumption that the other participant would finish with the same perceptions, so future audio dramas can be used to awaken witnesses\u2019 abilities to recognize others\u2019 viewpoints. \u201cI think it could be a really effective tool in social justice,\u201d says Sarche. He plans to gear his next work towards experimenting with that concept. Look out for his thesis, coming out Block 1 next fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Montana Bass \u201918 In a mix of creativity and innovation, Alec Sarche \u201917 has reinvented the theatre experience with his audio dramas. Inspired by post-modern designers who weight their work more to the audience\u2019s experience than actors\u2019 performances, Sarche created a situation in which the audience becomes the actor, participating in his theatre themselves, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Alec Sarche \u201917 Pushes the Limits of Experiential Art with Audio Dramas”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":648,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kudos","category-profile","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/648"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2939"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2940,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2939\/revisions\/2940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}