The Voice of Gods in Your Ear: Becoming the Avatar in Immersive Performance

This chapter explores how immersion and participation are experienced and conjured through augmented reality (AR) technologies through the case study of the located and augmented reality-enabled performance Nobody’s Ocean. In the performance, audiences navigated the story-world of Homer’s The Odyssey augmented in the streets of Melbourne, Australia, through audio, visual and social media content facilitated by their smartphone. The chapter examines three relationships that distinguish immersion in AR-enabled performance: that between seamlessness and disruption, between place and narrative and between avatars and a sense of located embodiment. Nobody’s Ocean was performed in Melbourne 13-22 October 2016, directed by Misha Myers with technical design by Chris Heywood, and produced by Monash Academy of Performing Arts and the Monash University Centre for Theatre and Performance in partnership with the Greek Centre for Contemporary Culture.