Digital Technologies in the Theater: ‘Situation Rooms’ by Rimini Protokoll

Situation Rooms, a production made by German collective called Rimini Protokoll, is an ambitious sociopolitical awareness project that is built around twenty stories by carefully selected protagonists, and whose lives are marked by the production, traffic and use of weapons in different parts of the world. Their experiences differ a lot one from another, which allows the spectators –who become active participants in these stories during the show– to see that reality from multiple perspectives. The live performance is part of a broad transmedial universe that addresses the issue of weapons and war: from press and television news, reportages or tweets, which activates the prior knowledge of each participant. Through the description of this project the article presents the effects that digital technologies have on theatre. Despite their notable presence in everyday life, new media still draw attention to themselves in the field of performance, having a double impact: on the one hand, they give a transmedia dimension to the show, on the other, they highlight the importance of the spectator’s gaze.