Dr Alexandra Huang-Kokina

AI-driven innovations for audience interaction and participation in 21st-century digitally-mediated theatre.

Type: Digital Humnaities & Artistic practice as research project
Timeline: March 2023-2026
Status: Initial stage completed during my research residency at Edinburgh University’s Digital Research Team; further project development in collaboration with the Centre for Intermedial and Multimodal Studies & Digital Transformations at Linnaeus University and the upcoming Centre for Aesthetics and Business Creativity at Lund University, Sweden.

Overview
The surge in generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) has sparked debates about its impact on human expression and connection in creative and performing arts. The particular aim of this research project is to explore how AI, as today’s leading disruptive technology, may complement and augment human artistic creativity. It uses modern opera and musical theatre as a case study to showcase AI’s cultural implications and socio-economic benefits for the creative community and beyond. Opera often struggles with accessibility for modern audiences due to its aristocratic origins and high costs, coupled with elitist prerequisites for deep cultural knowledge and specialised training. Musical theatre has historically portrayed racialised fantasies catering to Western audiences, necessitating a contemporary shift to rectify its stereotypes against less dominant races and cultures. As they risk relegation to obsolete ‘heritage’ arts, opera and musical theatre lag behind current digital culture’s trends that highlight audience-centred interaction and co-creation, key factors for making these arts more desirable for modern audiences. This project aims to identify effective ways to utilise AI in bridging this gap.

Through critical and creative practices, this project explores AI’s capacity to facilitate new modes of audience participation and engagement in opera and musical theatre’s digitally-mediated theatre, thus enhancing their appeal to contemporary audiences. This study represents the first systematic enquiry into AI’s impact on democratising live music performance, bringing together insights from Digital Humanities, opera studies, intermediality, business creativity, posthumanism, and AI ethics. Ultimately, it strives to make modern opera and musical theatre more interactive and accessible, while transitioning this innovative form of cultural consumption into an economically sustainable future in an increasingly AI-driven society.