The Justice Syndicate: A Practice as Research Project exploring immersion and agency in actorless technologically-enabled interactive performance, juror behaviour and reasonable doubt
- Submitting institution
-
London South Bank University
- Unit of assessment
- 34 - Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Library and Information Management
- Output identifier
- 291069
- Type
- T - Other
- DOI
-
10.18744/lsbu.89060
- Location
- -
- Brief description of type
- Performance, with documentation, journal articles and reviews
- Open access status
- Compliant
- Month
- -
- Year
- 2018
- URL
-
https://openresearch.lsbu.ac.uk/item/89060
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- Yes
- Number of additional authors
-
1
- Research group(s)
-
C - Digital Performance Research Group
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The Justice Syndicate is a 90-minute performance featuring an audience of 12 who become jurors considering a difficult case. All the content (video, documents, prompts to interact, invitations to vote) is delivered to the audience on iPads using a bespoke new software system, creating an original art form: technologically-enabled actorless interactive performance.
It has been performed 80 times over 2 years to members of the public in theatres (including National Theatre of Scotland), law courts (Dublin High Court) and festivals (York Mediale).
It was a collaboration between Drama researcher Dan Barnard, theatre maker Rachel Briscoe, computational artist Joe McAlister and neuroscientist Kris De Meyer.
Our research questions were:
Q1: Can an interactive performance without live actors facilitate in audience members a sense of immersion and a high level of agentive behaviour?
Q2: Can different juries, given the same evidence in the same order, reach different decisions and if so why?
We surveyed the (psychological, theatrical, legal) literature on immersion, juries and group decision-making before undertaking an iterative design process. The resulting performance is one of the first attempts to remove live actors from interactive performance, instead using digital platforms to stimulate interaction.
Our results (elaborated upon in the two supplementary articles) offer new insights in the realms of interactive performance and jury studies:
Q1: Creating interactive performance facilitated by machines can stimulate immersion by removing the fear of embarrassment, particularly by removing distinctions between “performers” and “audience.” It can also stimulate a high intensity of “agentive behaviour.”
Q2: Different juries, presented with the same evidence, can reach a wide range of different decisions. This is caused by group dynamics and how discussions play out rather than demographic differences or differences in individual psychology. We propose teaching jurors the psychological dynamics of group discussions to avoid being unconsciously influenced by them
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
