Costume as Interface: Wearable Technology and the Future of Interactive Storytelling in Theatre

Abstract

Theatre has long relied on costume as a symbolic medium of representation, yet the rapid integration of digital technologies demands a re-examination of its dramaturgical role. While existing research in scenography and wearable computing has explored interactivity, costume design remains under-theorized, often treated as a static artifact rather than a dynamic participant in storytelling. This study addresses this gap by conceptualizing costume as an interactive interface that operates across aesthetic, material, and narrative dimensions. Drawing on an interdisciplinary framework informed by performativity theory, actor-network theory, and design affordances, the research employs a triangulated methodology: literature analysis, comparative case studies, and cross-case synthesis. Findings from recent productions, including Ying Gao’s Flowing Water, Standing Time (2022), Polymorf’s Symbiosis (2023), and Pauline van Dongen’s Solar Shirt 2.0 (2022), demonstrate how smart textiles, sensors, and biofeedback garments function as narrative triggers, enhance performer-audience interactivity, and extend material responsiveness into dramaturgical agency. The results establish costumes not merely as visual accessories but as active narrative agents. Academically, this reconceptualization advances debates on embodiment, interactivity, and techno-materiality. Practically, it provides designers and practitioners with strategies for integrating wearable technology in ways that align innovation with narrative coherence, performer comfort, and ethical responsibility.