Talk by Tatiana Styliari

Tatiana will present her recent work on contemporary cinema-going to the lab.

Mapping the contemporary cinema-going experience

This presentation derives from one of my findings chapter and aims to explore what is the value of data attached both to cinemas and cinemagoers. It goes on to fulfil its overarching purpose to provide the reader with an understanding of the contemporary cinema-going landscape both from the exhibition and the audience perspective, focusing on the inclusion of digital platforms, activities and data. This will be achieved through mapping the cinema-going experience, firstly by concentrating on how cinema exhibitors handle data and secondly by exploring both the digital and physical activities and data involved in cinema-going before reaching the space, while in the space and after leaving it. In the first part, I present how two different kinds of cinemas, an art house cinema and a commercial chain cinema, and their staff, use data and technology. In the second part, there is a detailed description of the contemporary cinema-going experience from the audiences’ perspective: its definition and demarcating based on temporal, spatial and activity-based limits as well as the audience activities, platforms, interactions and data sharing it involves. I would ideally want this presentation to be rather a discussion and not a long presentation because I am currently writing up and I would be very grateful if I could get your feedback with regards to finding a better way to visualise my findings (eg. user journeys). Thanks!