Multimedia applications for playing with digitized theater performances

International audienceThis article presents a multimedia production chain that specializes in semantically annotated digitized theater performances. Semantic annotations--we prefer the term descriptions--are expressed in a description language that combines object-oriented features, taxonomical inheritance and temporal aggregations. The descriptions that are produced from several types of content related to the same theater play are synchronized at several levels of granularity providing rich relationships between the narrative structure of the text of the play and the narrative structure of the digitized theater performances. Two applications for multimedia access and navigation are presented in this paper, namely Dual Players, a navigation application that allows to synchronously play acts and scenes of two recordings; and Synthesizer that produces a raw publication of a new audiovisual document on the basis of the recordings

Beyond the Text: Digital Editions and Performance

Brett D. Hirsch and Janelle Jenstad, “Beyond the Text: Digital Editions and Performance.” Shakespeare Bulletin 34.1 (2016): 107–27

The American Assembly: Art, Technology, and Intellectual Property

Examines intellectual property issues as the arts sector joins other sectors in the race to deal with an increasingly information-driven economy

Esperienze creative e collaborative con il teatro d’ombre

Storytelling is a very common educational practice that is used in every level of education. It has a positive impact in children’s learning and creativity. Often the educational use of storytelling is based on national storytelling traditions such as Shadow Theater which is very popular in many countries including Greece. Inthis research we present eShadow, a storytelling tool inspired by the Greek traditional shadow theater and how it has been used in a number of Adult Learning Pilot Programmes (ALPPs) implemented within the context of the ALICE project in Greece.In these ALPPs, intra-family communication scenarios were investigated as well as scenarios related to enabling children develop their own digital stories using eShadow. Furthermore, eShadow was used in a live interactive performance event combining Music and Digital Shadow Theatre. The evidence gathered during the implementation of these ALPPs confirms that such kind of approaches can indeed enhance intergenerational bonding and create an engaging learning space for children to develop important key skills. Our findings illustrate that eShadowis very easy to use, attracts the interest of both children and teachers and has a positive impact on the development of children’s creativity.Lo storytelling è una pratica molto comune in ambito formative ed educativo, utilizzata ad ogni livello di istruzione. Ha un impatto positivo sull’apprendimento e la creatività dei bambini. Spesso l’uso didattico dello storytelling si basa su espressioni narrative ben conosciute a livello nazionale, qual è il caso del teatrodelle ombre, molto popolare in molti paesi tra cui la Grecia. In questa ricerca presentiamo i risultati dell’implementazione di uno strumento digitale, “eShadow”, ispirato al tradizionale teatro delle ombre greco, nel contesto di un certo numero di attività pilota per la formazione degli adulti (Adult Learning Pilot Programmes,ALPPS) attuate nel contesto del progetto ALICE, in Grecia.In questi ALPPS, gli scenari di comunicazione intra-familiari sono stati studiati così come scenari che consentono ai bambini di sviluppare le proprie abilità per il lavoro con lo strumento digitale eShadow. Inoltre, eShadow è stato utilizzato in evento interattivo che univa presentazioni di Musica e Teatro con la presenzadi teatro delle ombre “digitale”. Le prove raccolte nel corso di questi ALPPS conferma l’ipotesi degli autori che questo tipo di approcci può infatti migliorare i legami intergenerazionali e consente di sviluppare importanti competenze chiave sia negli adulti che nei bambini. I nostri risultati mostrano che eShadow è molto facile da usare, attira l’interesse di bambini e insegnanti e ha un positivoimpatto sullo sviluppo della creatività dei bambini

Video Jockeys: New Media in Performance Art

Since the introduction of digitized media into culture, the artistic venture to integrate technology into performance has taken many names. Multimedia performance, interactive media, and digital media design are all novel forms in the lexicon of new media art. The medium of projection arts encapsulates those arts which utilize media projection as a foundational tool. In this thesis, I will investigate a novel projection art: VJing. VJing is a live visual art form that has risen in popularity across music genres. It utilizes a multitude of new media to alter the traditional music performance into an audio-visual synaesthetic experience. First, I analyze VJing by tracing the genealogy of its predecessors, Secondly, I interrogate the underlying critical implications of VJing within the larger context of visual culture. This project does not seek to romanticize the VJ but instead to insert it into scholarly discourse so that we may begin to critically interrogate its existence in contemporary media and performance. By placing the VJ in conversation with different schools of study, such as film, literature, and media studies, I hope to invite and legitimize additional critiques of the artform. Further, this thesis aims to inspire similar studies about projection arts.No embargoAcademic Major: Comparative Studie

3D (embodied) projection mapping and sensing bodies : a study in interactive dance performance

This dissertation identifies the synergies between physical and virtual environments when designing for immersive experiences in interactive dance performances. The integration of virtual information in physical space is transforming our interactions and experiences with the world. By using the body and creative expression as the interface between real and virtual worlds, dance performance creates a privileged framework to research and design interactive mixed reality environments and immersive augmented architectures. The research is primarily situated in the fields of visual art and interaction design. It combines performance with transdisciplinary fields and intertwines practice with theory. The theoretical and conceptual implications involved in designing and experiencing immersive hybrid environments are analyzed using the reality–virtuality continuum. These theories helped frame the ways augmented reality architectures are achieved through the integration of dance performance with digital software and reception displays. They also helped identify the main artistic affordances and restrictions in the design of augmented reality and augmented virtuality environments for live performance. These pervasive media architectures were materialized in three field experiments, the live dance performances. Each performance was created in three different stages of conception, design and production. The first stage was to “digitize” the performer’s movement and brain activity to the virtual environment and our system. This was accomplished through the use of depth sensor cameras, 3D motion capture, and brain computer interfaces. The second stage was the creation of the computational architecture and software that aggregates the connections and mapping between the physical body and the spatial dynamics of the virtual environment. This process created real-time interactions between the performer’s behavior and motion and the real-time generative computer 3D graphics. Finally, the third stage consisted of the output modality: 3D projector based augmentation techniques were adopted in order to overlay the virtual environment onto physical space. This thesis proposes and lays out theoretical, technical, and artistic frameworks between 3D digital environments and moving bodies in dance performance. By sensing the body and the brain with the 3D virtual environments, new layers of augmentation and interactions are established, and ultimately this generates mixed reality environments for embodied improvisational self-expression.Radio-Television-Fil

‘To see the Playes of Theatre newe wrought’: Electronic Editions and Early Tudor Drama

Brett D. Hirsch, “ ‘To see the Playes of Theatre newe wrought’: Electronic Editions and Early Tudor Drama.” Early Theatre 16.2 (2013): 211-49

Video recording and documentation of the performing arts: from the annotation to the visualization of metadata, the example of the Rekall software

International audienceFrom the mid 2000s, an increasing number of initiatives have explored the digitization of live performance collections. Generally these initiatives focus mainly on video recording, the most “spectacular” and easily approachable components of performance archives. Yet, it may seem simplistic to suggest the webcasting of video recordings, in whole or in part, in the midst of the possibilities offered by semantic web technologies and metadata. What are the benefits of digital technologies over the more conventional documentary method that has now become video recording? We will demonstrate how one answer lies in video recording annotation. Far from being univocal, video recording annotation has brought forward multiple approaches in the field of the performing arts. We will outline key experiments on the subject, including those led by William Forsythe, whose work has transformed video recordings from heritage materials to being a generator of digital arts, in the perspective of capturing choreography. Using Rekall software (currently under development), the goal is to expand the video annotation model to reach out to new visual possibilities of displaying the metadata underlying a heterogeneous corpus of documents associated with the same performance

ECLAP 2012 Conference on Information Technologies for Performing Arts, Media Access and Entertainment

It has been a long history of Information Technology innovations within the Cultural Heritage areas. The Performing arts has also been enforced with a number of new innovations which unveil a range of synergies and possibilities. Most of the technologies and innovations produced for digital libraries, media entertainment and education can be exploited in the field of performing arts, with adaptation and repurposing. Performing arts offer many interesting challenges and opportunities for research and innovations and exploitation of cutting edge research results from interdisciplinary areas. For these reasons, the ECLAP 2012 can be regarded as a continuation of past conferences such as AXMEDIS and WEDELMUSIC (both pressed by IEEE and FUP). ECLAP is an European Commission project to create a social network and media access service for performing arts institutions in Europe, to create the e-library of performing arts, exploiting innovative solutions coming from the ICT

How Visualization Supports the Daily Work in Traditional Humanities on the Example of Visual Analysis Case Studies

Attempts to convince humanities scholars of digital approaches are met with resistance, often. The so-called Digitization Anxiety is the phenomenon that describes the fear of many traditional scientists of being replaced by digital processes. This hinders not only the progress of the scientific domains themselves – since a lot of digital potential is missing – but also makes the everyday work of researchers unnecessarily difficult. Over the past eight years, we have made various attempts to walk the tightrope between 'How can we help traditional humanities to exploit their digital potential?' and 'How can we make them understand that their expertise is not replaced by digital means, but complemented?' We will present our successful interdisciplinary collaborations: How they came about, how they developed, and the problems we encountered. In the first step, we will look at the theoretical basics, which paint a comprehensive picture of the digital humanities and introduces us to the topic of visualization. The field of visualization has shown a special ability: It manages to walk the tightrope and thus keeps digitization anxiety at bay, while not only making it easier for scholars to access their data, but also enabling entirely new research questions. After an introduction to our interdisciplinary collaborations with the Musical Instrument Museum of Leipzig University, as well as with the Bergen-Belsen Memorial, we will present a series of user scenarios that we have collected in the course of 13 publications. These show our cooperation partners solving different research tasks, which we classify using Brehmer and Munzner’s Task Classification. In this way, we show that we provide researchers with a wide range of opportunities: They can answer their traditional research questions – and in some cases verify long-standing hypotheses about the data for the first time – but also develop their own interest in previously impossible, new research questions and approaches. Finally, we conclude our insights on individual collaborative ideas with perspectives on our newest projects. These have risen from the growing interest of collaborators in the methods we deliver. For example, we get insights into the music of real virtuosos of the 20th century. The necessary music storage media can be heard for the first time through digital tools without risking damage to the old material. In addition, we can provide computer-aided analysis capabilities that help musicologists in their work. In the course of the visualization project at the Bergen-Belsen memorial, we will see that what was once a small diary project has grown into a multimodal and international project with institutions of culture and science from eight countries. This is dedicated not only to the question of preserving cultural objects from Nazi persecution contexts but also to modern ways of disseminating and processing knowledge around this context. Finally, we will compile our experience and accumulated knowledge in the form of problems and challenges at the border between computer science and traditional humanities. These will serve as preparation and assistance for future and current interested parties of such interdisciplinary collaborative project