OPEN WORLD SOUND THEATRE©
Over 3 years, an international team of artists, writers, directors, actors, composers, designers, technologists and historians were brought together by THE FIELD STATION to create THE ISLAND IS DEAD, a unique artistic collaboration on the tiny Arctic island of Ingøya.
What started out as radical experiment with the islanders themselves has now grown into a new and evolving artistic practice: OPEN WORLD SOUND THEATRE©.
Our newly created process of fusing geolocation technology, binaural audio, and 3D sound design with our unique sonic dramaturgy has enabled us to seamlessly interweave landscape with narrative drama, transforming an entire geographical area into a stage - in this case, one of the world’s northernmost settlements 4 hours out to sea.
Plunged into a sonic open-world under the midnight sun or the polar night, audiences are free to explore their surroundings, follow characters and interact with their environment in what ever way they choose, culminating in both a physical and poetic journey across the landscape, dictated by individual speed and movement, making no two experiences the same.
TRADITION MEETS TECHNOLOGY
A complex interplay of sound, dramaturgy, spacial perception, performance and geolocation combine to harness the imagination, projecting it outwards like a camera lens. Consequently, two parallel realities coexist for an audience - our overlaid sonic world and the real world they are walking in. This potent duality sits at the core of OPEN WORLD SOUND THEATRE© and reaches back to the very origins of Drama - Dialectical discourse, Brechtian Epic Theatre and the provocation of critical thought.
The establishment of OPEN WORLD SOUND THEATRE© as a new artistic practice, led by THE FIELD STATION’s founder Oliver Dawe with sound artist Josh Spear has been an industry game-changer, showcased in Oliver and Benedikte’s mesmerising new play about resilience in the face of both personal and environmental loss.
Thanks in part to early research and development support from Arts Council Norway (Kulturrådet), THE ISLAND IS DEAD marks a watershed moment - opening up exciting new artistic possibilities, breaking traditional building-centric models of arts engagement, and widening public access to cultural experiences, especially for remote and rural communities.
It’s permanence as piece of theatre allows for durational and flexible audience engagement over many years, solving issues arising from unpredictable/extreme climate driven weather events and rising socio-economic barriers.
MAKING THE ISLAND IS DEAD
Writers Oliver Dawe and Benedikte K. Sandberg spent over 2 years developing the script. Oral history collected in-person from the inhabitants of Ingøy (past and present) and interviews with historians, academics and archivists was combined with numerous site-visits to map the island and create our topographical dramaturgy, helping to construct the narrative and place stories and historical events at the exact locations where they took place.
Experiments exploring the technological, artistic and logistical possibilities saw the team embark on a series of Winter and Summer residencies on the island , culminating in several tests and a pilot version of OPEN WORLD SOUND THEATRE©
A 2 week workshop in Oslo saw us develop the script and test elements of the sonic dramaturgy for OPEN WORLD SOUND THEATRE©. British actors Peter Clements and Claire Brown were joined by Norwegian Actor Andrea Vik. This was followed by 3 weeks of rehearsals with the full cast for THE ISLAND IS DEAD at Oslo Theatre Centre before 16 days of studio recording at Nitro Studio.
An 18 day production period on Ingøy saw the international creative team capture hundreds of field recordings, programme the geolocation, rehearse and record a community choir and cast of actors, all culminating in a full-scale test of THE ISLAND IS DEAD in both the Norwegian and English language versions.
