Multi-Media Access and Presentation in a Theatre Information Environment

This paper discusses a virtual world for presenting multi-media information and for natural interactions with the environment to get access to this information. Apart from mouse and keyboard input, interactions take place using speech and language. It is shown how this virtual environment can be considered as an interest community and it is shown what further research and development is required to obtain an environment where visitors can retrieve information about artists, authors and performances, can discuss performances with others and can be provided with information and contacts in accordance with their preferences. We investigate how we can increase the user’s commitment to the environment and its agents by providing context and increasing the user’s feeling of ‘presence ’ in the environment. Moreover, we spend some notes on realtime and video performances in our virtual theatre