Client
Goldsmiths University/Coney/Showcaster

Project
Better Than Life

Proposition
To piece together elements from theatre, gaming and TV and explore a new type of interactive live event.

Overview
Spirit teamed up with Goldsmiths University, Cony and Showcaster to produce ‘Better Than Life’. This was an experimental theatre performance made so that it could be enjoyed by an intimate and interactive live audience, as well an unlimited amount of people that would be able to tune in from home.

Merging elements from theatre, gaming and TV, this R&D project was an exploration of a new type of live event that generates drama by giving audiences, both online and in the physical space, the agency to influence the narrative world of the piece. The web tools we are investigating will be the opposite of video on demand; a digital platform that allow an audience to genuinely interact with a live arts event.

Execution
3 weeks (12^th -27^th June)

Press

• http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2014/jul/01/coney-no-island-streamed-theatre-audiences
• http://exeuntmagazine.com/features/a-house-with-many-rooms/
• http://sketchesontheatre.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/better-than-life-review-or-is-there.html
• http://artsdigitalrnd.org.uk/features/gorillas-beautiful-tension-better-than-life-an-interview-with-annette-mees-of-coney/

Quotes
“intriguing glimpses of a number of possible futures…”

Andrew Haydon, Guardian Theatre Blog , July 2014

“It is scrappy as hell but it is new and vital, a fascinating glimpse of a crucial shift in the way we might watch theatre.”

Miriam Gillinson, Sketches on Theatre , June 2014