Section 98 was Praxis Theatre’s first serious foray into Social Design

By Michael Wheeler

I have been trying to figure out for a while how to explain what my role is on many of the projects I have worked on in the past five years. Although I am usually engaged as an artist in a traditional way, often I have taken on a role integrating these productions with online tools.

Theatre productions employ lighting designers, sound designers, costume designers, set designers and video designers. As productions become further intertwined with online tools, the person in charge of integrating a production with social media is in charge of social design.

Social Design: The strategic implementation of social media to deepen or broaden the nature of an artistic project.

In performance, the shift to communicating with online tools can be understood as a transition from Monologue to Dialogue.

Until recently, one-way communication tools like advertisements, posters, brochures, postcards, flyers, and notes in programs were the ways theatres and artists communicated about their work.

The arrival of online digital tools has redefined this relationship as a conversation. Social media requires interactive, user-generated content. The exercise is no longer how to blast your message at people, but how to encourage them to engage with you.

The type of interactivity a social designer can facilitate can be broken down into three broad categories:

Click to continue reading on michaelcwheeler.com