Until March 26, an intense and immersive show is happening in Norwich outside the Forum. DARKFIELD: EULOGY is a 35-minute thrilling performance which takes place in the total darkness of a shipping container. Binaural sound is used to take the audience on a journey through the different corridors and rooms of a strangely uncomfortable hotel. How you ended up in the hotel is a mystery, as speech recognition technology allows you to determine your destiny. We went along to the performance to try it out.
The format of the piece lent itself very well to having the audience become part of the story, being drawn into the narrative straight away. With the help of a microphone on the headset, the story changed depending on how you answered the questions at the beginning.
The total darkness of the piece was very intriguing, as our brains pictured parts of the story as they were spoken to us. The descriptions from the characters, paired with the 3D sound effects made the whole experience that much more realistic as we felt like we were there.
Another element of the experience was the movement of the box we were placed in. The shipping container rumbled in time with every sudden noise heard from the headphones. For example, we could feel footsteps of characters which helped to immerse us within the narrative. It was unbelievable how the creators of the project were able to recreate the feeling of going down in a lift using just the sound and rumbling of our surroundings.
DARKFIELD: EULOGY was a highly immersive experience, which engaged all the senses – except sight – to place us directly in the hotel. We especially liked how the combination of the headset and the shipping container created an entirely different world, with a captivating story that the audience is involved in.
Tickets are available for £11.50 on the Norwich Theatre’s website, with showings of the performance taking place until this Sunday. Are you brave enough to explore this hotel?
Written by UEA Journalism students, Aimee Dexter and Lucy Potter