ACTING PERFORMANCE AND SENSORY STIMULATION IN CONTEMPORARY THEATRE

Acting Performance and Sensory Stimulation in Contemporary Theatre

Table of contents

1. Introduction3

Previous work on Interactive Theatre4

New media art and Interactive Theatre10

Embodied mixed reality space12

Live 3D actors14

Hardware setup15

Software components16

Ambient Intelligence17

Interactive Theatre system19

3D Live capture room20

Interactive Theatre Space21

Sound in Theatre Space22

The aesthetics of the visual theatre25

Acting Performance and Sensory Stimulation in Contemporary Theatre

Introduction

Digital technology has given rise to new media forms. Interactive theatre is such a new type of media that introduces new digital interaction methods into theatres. In a typical experience of interactive theatres, people enter cyberspace and enjoy the development of a story in a non-linear manner by interacting with the characters in the story. Therefore, in contrast to conventional theatre which presents predetermined scenes and story settings unilaterally, interactive theatre makes it possible for the viewer to actually take part in the plays and enjoy a first person experience.

For this paper, we are concerned with embodied mixed reality techniques using video-see-through HMDs (head mounted display). (B. Reeves and C. Nass, 1996, p23) Our research goal is to explore the potential of embodied mixed reality space as an interactive theatre experience medium. What makes our system advantageous is that we for the first time combine embodied mixed reality, live 3D human actor capture and Ambient Intelligence, for an increased sense of presence and interaction.

We present here a Interactive Theatre system using Mixed Reality, 3D Live, 3D sound and Ambient Intelligence. In this system, thanks to embodied Mixed Reality and Ambient Intelligence, audiences are totally submerged into an imaginative virtual world of the play in 3D form. They can walk around to view the show at any viewpoint, to see different parts and locations of the story scene, and to follow the story on their own interests. (P. Dourish, 2001, p212)

Moreover, with 3D Live technology, which allows live 3D human capture, our Interactive Theatre system enables actors at different places all around the world play together on the same place in real-time. Audiences can see the performance of these actors/actresses as if they were really in front of them.

Furthermore, using Mixed Reality technologies, audiences can see both virtual objects and the real world at the same time. Thus, they can see not only actors/actresses of the play but the other audiences as well. All of them can also interact and participate in the play, which will compose very special experience.

Our system of Mixed Reality and 3D Live with AmI is intended to bring performance art to the people while offering to the performance artists a creative tool to extend the grammar of the traditional theatre. This Interactive Theatre also enables social networking and relations, which is the essence of the theatre, by supporting simultaneous participants in human-to-human social manner. Our Quanticum Man is an allegory of the time of the General Relativity and the matter of the Quantum Mechanics. (F. Sparacino, 1996)

Previous work on Interactive Theatre

The systematic study of the expressive resources of the body started in France with Francois Delsarte, at the end ...