Virtual Scenography: The Actor, Audience, Computer Interface

Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage

This study examines how virtual reality images are used in contemporary theatre. Modern technologies get into various areas of life including the theatrical environment. Therefore, the study of the role of virtual reality in contemporary theatre is crucial for the qualitative understanding of the tendencies in development of the contemporary theatre scene in the context of the development of contemporary art. This determines the relevance of this study and subsequent academic research in this field as well. The purpose of this study is to assess the degree of influence of modern technologies on creating virtual reality in the development of theatrical art. The leading approach for this study is a combination of a systematic study of the main trends in the creation of virtual reality within the framework of the development of modern technologies and the logical construction of conclusions retrieved from the results of this study. The main results obtained in this study are supposed t...

From the moment we expand the reach of the term ‘theater’ beyond its ephemeral, unique, irreproducible realization, we obtain a broader perspective on the contemporary scenic creation. By broadening the field of theater to before its scenic realization, as project and as creative process, and to after, in the form of the various discoursive elements (comments, criticisms, accounts) or iconographic elements (photographs, recordings, remains of sets and costumes) that amplify it, effuse it, disseminate it, spread it, deform it, and transform it we free ourselves from an overly narrow image which is not able to do justice to the multiplicity of experiences of contemporary theater.

Digital Creativity, 1999

The Institute for the Exploration of Virtual Realities (i.e.VR) is a project group at the University of Kansas dedicated to exploring the uses of computer technology in performance and computer-generated images as a scenographic medium. Three recent productions are described which aimed to use VR technologies not to simulate reality but to achieve 'engagement' of the audience. This is described as immersing the participant through engaging storytelling. The three plays were The Adding Machine, Wings and Tesla Electric, and they have provided a wealth of information on the art and practice of immersing a theatre audience within a fictive world.

Proceedings of the 2010 ACM workshop on Surreal media and virtual cloning - SMVC '10, 2010

The idea of combining virtual reality technology and theatrical tradition to create virtual plays has captured artists' imaginations for some time. Using conventional technology, the use of virtual characters in a theatrical performance often integrates the predefined animations of virtual actors into the theater scene, resulting in a performance that can feel stilted and unresponsive due to its preprogrammed nature. This paper proposes a new system that allows actors to animate virtual characters in real time, resulting in a more flexible and interactive theatrical performance experience. Actors are sequestered at a remote site, invisible to the audience, and are digitized by a motion capture system. Using camera feeds to provide the remote actors with information about the behavior of the live actors and audience in the theater, the remote actors can adapt their virtual counterparts' behavior to react to live events in realtime, giving the illusion to the audience that the virtual characters are responsive to their actions.

Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education, 2009

The global use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has already established new approaches to theatre education and research, shifting traditional methods of knowledge delivery towards a more visually enhanced experience, which is especially important for teaching scenography. In this paper, I examine the role of multimedia within the field of theatre studies, with particular focus on the theory and practice of theatre design and education. I discuss various IT applications that have transformed the way we experience, learn and co-create our cultural heritage. I explore a suite of rapidly developing communication and computer-visualization techniques that enable reciprocal exchange between students, theatre performances and artefacts. Eventually, I analyse novel technology-mediated teaching techniques that attempt to provide a new media platform for visually enhanced information transfer. My findings indicate that the recent developments in the personalization of knowledge delivery, and also in student-centred study and e-learning, necessitate the transformation of the learners from passive consumers of digital products to active and creative participants in the learning experience.

ACM SIGGRAPH 2005 Educators program on - SIGGRAPH '05, 2005

Computer graphics research and applications have involved collaborations between professionals in both technical and artistic areas from the beginning. Theatre is a field where collaboration between technicians and artists has been an inherent component for centuries. Virtual Theatre merges these two collaborative arenas with the goal of providing a springboard for learning through interdisciplinary collaboration and teamwork. The project is geared toward those looking to enter the electronic entertainment industries where successful collaboration between artists and technologists is crucial to the success of a project. In the spring of 2004, students in three courses worked together to create a virtual theatre production at the Rochester Institute of Technology. In this paper we describe the collaborative learning approach taken in these courses and discuss our impressions of the results and issues that emerged.

International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, 2006

Virtual reality (VR) technologies offer theatre and performance unique and compelling possibilities, but surprisingly few, though notable experiments have so far materialized. The essay synthesises some of its early history, surveying how it has been used in theatrical and performance contexts, where somewhat paradoxically, its high-tech and 'futuristic' features have most commonly been utilized to conjure ancient, classical or primeval worlds and spaces. Brenda Laurel and Rachel Strickland's Placeholder (1993) and Char Davies' Osmose (1994-95) return to prehistoric landscapes and times, while Yacov Sharir and Diane Gromala's Dancing with the Virtual Dervish (1994) also returns to nature, exploring the interior of the human body. VR's employment as a 3D scenographic medium is analyzed through examination of Mark Reaney's immersive live theatre designs for ieVR, Richard Beacham's navigable VR reconstructions of ancient theatres, and Blast Theory's Desert Rain (1999), which 'restages' the 1991 Gulf War as a participatory VR war game. The conclusion analyses the key issues currently inhibiting greater utilisation of the technology in theatre and performance, and its potential for development in the future.

Challenges of the Internet of Things, 2018

In the first part of this paper, we will introduce the scenographic design on which our presentation is based, and the modifications we have made in relation to our previous work. Next, in the second section, we will discuss in detail the impact of augmenting the player’s game using an avatar, compared to the scenic limitations of the theatrical stage. In part three of the paper, we will discuss the software-related aspects of the project, focusing on exchanges between the different components of our design and describing the algorithms enabling us to utilize the real-time movement of a player via various capture devices. To conclude, we will examine in detail how our experimental system linking physical actors and avatars profoundly alters the nature of collaboration between directors, actors, and digital artists in terms of actor/avatar direction.

Learning, Media and Technology, 2010

Representing elements of reality within a medium, or taking aspects from one medium and placing them in another is an act of remediation. The process of this act, however, is largely taken for granted. Despite the fact that available information enables a qualitative assessment of the history of multimedia and their influences on different fields of knowledge, there are still some areas that require more focused research attention. For example, the relationship between media evolution and new developments in scenographic practice is currently under investigation. This article explores the issue of immediacy as a condition of modern theatre in the context of digital reality. It discusses the opportunities and challenges that recent technologies present to contemporary practitioners and theatre design educators, creating a lot of scope to break with conventions. Here, we present two case studies that look into technology-mediated learning about scenography through the employment of novel computer visualization techniques. The first case study is concerned with new ways of researching and learning about theatre through creative exploration of design artefacts. The second case study investigates the role of the Immersive Virtual World Second Life™ (SL) in effective teaching of scenography, and in creating and experiencing theatrical performances.

2020

For more than a decade, virtual reality (VR) has been employed to enrich and heighten media experiences. Despite the recognized potential and promise of VR, and ample investment, it has yet to fully transform or replace existing screen-based experiences (e.g. film or gaming). This research forms a part of a larger project to shift VR applications beyond otherwise apparent areas of screen-based media, in order to enhance audience access and propinquity to a live performance. This study is being conducted in the field of theatre, a dramatic medium in which audience are traditionally static and where an individual’s seating position determines their perceptual experience (distance, angle, lights, obstructed vs clear view). This paper introduces the broader project and its experimentation with VR as an assistive technology. The project seeks to utilize VR as a means of converting an otherwise static experience to provide collective moments of visual teleportation, onto stage, into props...