Intermedial Ontologies: Strategies of Preparedness, Research and Design in Real Time Performance Capture

Authors

  • Matthew Delbridge Queensland University of Technology, Tasmanian College of the Arts
  • Riku Roihankorpi University of Tampere

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7146/nts.v26i2.24309

Keywords:

Performance Capture, Motion Capture, The Omniscient Frame, avatar, intermediality, virtuality, performance

Abstract

The paper introduces and inspects core elements relative to the ‘live’ in performances that utilise real time Motion Capture (MoCap) systems and cognate/reactive virtual environments by drawing on interdisciplinary research conducted by Matthew Delbridge (University of Tasmania), and the collaborative live MoCap workshops carried out in projects DREX and VIMMA (2009-12 and 2013-14, University of Tampere). It also discusses strategies to revise manners of direction and performing, practical work processes, questions of production design and educational aspects peculiar to technological staging. Through the analysis of a series of performative experiments involving 3D real time virtual reality systems, projection mapping and reactive surfaces, new ways of interacting in/with performance have been identified. This poses a unique challenge to traditional approaches of learning about staging, dramaturgy, acting, dance and performance design in the academy, all of which are altered in a fundamental manner when real time virtual reality is introduced as a core element of the performative experience. Meanwhile, various analyses, descriptions and theorisations of technological performance have framed up-to-date policies on how to approach these questions more systematically. These have given rise to more sophisticated notions of preparedness of performing arts professionals, students and researchers to confront the potentials of new technologies and the forms of creativity and art they enable. The deployment of real time Motion Capture systems and co-present virtual environments in an educational setting comprise a peculiar but informative case of study for the above to be explored.

Author Biographies

Matthew Delbridge, Queensland University of Technology, Tasmanian College of the Arts

Matt Delbridge has a PhD from the Queensland University of Technology and lectures in Theatre Design and Performance Technologies at the Tasmanian College of the Arts. His first monograph Motion Capture in Performance: An Introduction was released in 2015, and he has also published in the journals Animation Practice, Process and Production, Body Space and Technology, and Scene. In other lives Matt has worked in orchestra management for the State Orchestra of Victoria (Aus), operated MoCap systems at the Deakin Motion Lab in Melbourne (Aus), designed for Split Britches (USA), and stage managed for Gilgul Theatre Company (Aus).

Riku Roihankorpi, University of Tampere

Riku Roihankorpi is currently the Research Director of the Centre for Practise as Research in Theatre at the University of Tampere. He has led international research projects DREX (2009-12) and VIMMA (2013-14) on technological performance. His research and teaching reflect areas of performance philosophy and intermedial, political and non-anthropocentric performance, along with their ethical challenges. Recent publications include “Performing (the Subject of ) Exteriority: Virtuality, Mīmēsis, and the Gratuitous ‘One Must’” in Through the Virtual, Toward the Real: The Performing Subject in the Spaces of Technology (2015, Palgrave Macmillan) and the co-edited anthology Näyttämö ja tutkimus 5: Teatteri ja media(t) (2014).

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Published

2014-09-09

How to Cite

Delbridge, M., & Roihankorpi, R. (2014). Intermedial Ontologies: Strategies of Preparedness, Research and Design in Real Time Performance Capture. Nordic Theatre Studies, 26(2), 46–58. https://doi.org/10.7146/nts.v26i2.24309

Issue

Vol. 26 No. 2 (2014): Theatre and Technology

Section

Articles thematic section

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