Amplifying Sensory Spaces: The In and Outputs of Headphone Theatre

Headphone theatre stimulates the interaction of media modalities and multimodal perception, and as such, is in an interesting position to explore and challenge the politics of perception. Addressing the relationship of the visual and the aural and the potential subversion of the hierarchy of the senses, this paper will examine the ways in which headphones manipulate relationships between what is seen (or not) and what is heard. Cognitive science and phenomenology will be used to analyse the ways in which headphone theatre creates slippages in our perception and triggers multimodal effects. Examples of headphone theatre will be explored, with particular focus on David Rosenberg’s The Roof (2014) and Ring (2013), and Lundahl and Seitl's Symphony of a Missing Room (2014), and discussion will consider the theatricalisation and mediatisation of the senses and perception. Drawing on Marshall McLuhan’s understanding of auditory space, this paper will further address how headphone theatre emphasizes “synaesthesia and wholeness” and activates haptic perception. Headphone theatre creates various dimensions of auditory space that surround, and resonate within, the body of the listener, inevitably complicating their role as perceiver and participant. Finally, the experience of the listener as being in a shared performance space will be explored: headphones both isolate and connect.