Mixed Reality
The term Mixed Reality has multiple meanings depending on a number of variables:
the design of experiences that provide audiences with multiple types of simultaneous, or oscillating physical-based and virtual based experiences;
which creators are designing the experience(s) and what types of interactions are being afforded (from passive to interactive);
the types of technologies used in order to mediate and complement the ‘live’ with the virtual.
In our case we wanted dance creators to gain as much knowledge as they could by the implementation of several tactics over a period of 8 months and through the implementation of various productions.
Motion capture was demonstrated as a tool that can link the live experience of dance with a virtual one; particular if dancers are being captured then accessed virtually through an application.
Integration into Augmented Reality also affords new types of interactions. It demands that audiences take a measure of responsibility for experiencing virtualized dance. Those responsibilities include downloading an application, installing it on their phones, and learning how to use the application to access virtual dancers.
integration of Virtual Reality also affords new audience interactions providing them (in our case) with an experience of dance as both projection and as virtualized interactions.
Motion Capture
Considering how dance can be captured through a number of sensors and re-interpreted as a series of vertices on a virtual skeleton whose virtual body can be
re-imagined.
To provide dance creators exposure to new techniques and processes that may help them extend beyond traditional live interactions into ones that are more virtualized.
Dance creators could benefit from deeper integration with emerging technologies and use them to their advantage.
Integration into AR
Considering how motion captured dance or video’d dance can be integrated within a marker-based mobile experience
To provide dance creators with new mediums of expression and inspire new types of creativity to emerge.
Dance creators may gain more exposure for their work beyond the typical boundaries of the live stage or archival video of a performance.
Integration into VR
Considering how 360 video capture or 180 degree video capture can be displayed on web-based and HMD based devices.
To inspire dance creators to think about the audience being all around them versus solely in front of them and inspire new types of creativity to emerge based on who the user is. Head mounted 360 cameras would provide them with what a dancer sees (for example).
Dance creators may gain more exposure for their work beyond the typical boundaries of the live stage or archival video of a performance as new VR portals for dance surface regularly.
Results:
So far results of Small Stage experiments of Mixed Reality have been presented at various Mixed Reality Symposiums, including the Arts, Culture and Digital Transformation Summit in Banff and the Mixed Reality Symposium held at the University of British Columbia co-produced by Toaster Lab. A paper of the Small Stage Augmented Reality experience has been accepted for publication. We include the paper, which provides an overview of proscenium-based dance and how the Small Stage AR application challenged conventional perspectives of dance.
