Pine and Gilmore

Figure 3: Diagram showing Pine and Gilmore’s 4 realm theory (The Experience economy: work is theatre and every Business a stage 1999)

Pine and Gilmore’s (1999) model is made up of four realms see Figure 3, which look at individual’s experiences and how they absorb them either passively with entertainment or activity with education. The other two realms look being passively immersed in the aesthetic and escapism environment. Radder and Han (2015) have researched further into the four realms and really examined the escapist and aesthetic experiences. They go on to stay that if participants don’t have these two experiences met they wont have a good experience over all, and that age effects how the two experiences are being met. Mehmetoglu and Engen (2011) have gone on even further to say that participant experience comes from how they tell stories about the event after it has happened. This applied to me as after I had seen the 451 play I came home to tell everyone about what had happened.

The 451 play fits into the Pine and Gilmores (1999) four realms, as I would have said before I went to the play that my experience would have been for entertainment only, but now that I have attended, I would say that the experience is definitely more of an aesthetic one. Consoil (2014) talks about how the aesthetic experience require the participant to be able to mind read and think for themselves to reach their own advanced conclusion about their experiences.  This was represented in the 451 play when we were shown a pile of books being burnt, with one of the actresses saying that should we burn her as she knows the book. Which I think very a profound thing to say and really got me thinking about what I read and the educational purpose this play is trying to convey to it audience. Goldman (2013) takes a different slant on this theory by saying that there are two facts that make up the aesthetic experience and they both have to be present for the experience to be aesthetic. The first one is cognition and the other is moral. Hagman (2005) has taken yet another spin on the aesthetic experience saying the problems may lie in the fact that there is a lack of research on the origins of aesthetic experience. This is what I felt when the main character was taken to a dream like state. At this point in the play, there were fireworks on the top of aerials making the sky look as if there was a great mesmerizing star in it, which played with my imagination.  

"451 Play" Smith (2015)