Reframing opera in mobile media
Jaakko Nousiainen · International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media · 2012
ABSTRACTRapid development in the technological capacity of mobile devices to stream content from the Internet has opened up a new but as yet largely unexamined field for writing, producing and delivering opera. This raises the questions of what constitutes an opera on the mobile platform, and what characteristics would make it unique and different from other recent mediatized forms of opera, such as location sensitive augmented reality operas? So far, there has been little research in this area, in particular that voiced by artists working in the field. This article presents a case study of an experimental opera, Omnivore, primarily designed and created for on-demand mobile use. The article takes a practice-led stance in exploring what kind of new features this work can add to the nature of opera; the approach is auto-ethnographical, in that the case study is regarded as a source of situated knowledge. Through examination of the different production phases of the mobile opera and by reflecting the work ag...