160 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
160 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ
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The Fifth Wall°°°°°°°°BRINGING THEATRE INTO VIRTUAL WORLDS°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
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ßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßß
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My fingers twitch as I pick up the phone. Carefully I dial the
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number that two weeks earlier I scribbled down on a piece of paper.
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Three thousand miles away, a phone in the San Francisco Bay Area
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rings. A little girl sounding no more than six-years-old answers.
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"Hel-LO?"
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Howard Rheingold takes the phone from his daughter. He sounds
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slightly frazzled.
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"It's been one of those days..." he utters, and he probably
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wishes he was in an artificial world right now.
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Multimedia guru, author, and editor of The Whole Earth Review,
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Howard Rheingold has become one of the world's leading authorities
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on Virtual Reality. His book, simply titled Virtual Reality, was
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the first authoritative text on the subject. He is known for his
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views on technology and culture, and not surprisingly Virtual
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Reality has become one of his fortes.
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"Ultimately it (Virtual Reality) is a theatrical medium, and the
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question is can you create a first-person experience? And that's a
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big challenge."
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For the multimedia virgin, defining Virtual Reality is a bit
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like trying to define one's first taste of ice cream: it's difficult
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to properly describe the experience unless one has actually tasted
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it. Virtual Reality (VR) is an interactive, three-dimensional,
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computer-generated graphical world into which the user is actually
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placed. Instead of looking at a computer display, which is what we
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do now, the graphic environment actually surrounds and interacts
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with you. At the present-time, this involves the use of a
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head-mounted display-unit through which one sees this graphic
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environment. It also senses the movement of the head and reacts to
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it, such that if you were to move your head to the left or right,
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your point of view through the display would correspond. Currently
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the computer-generated world consists only of computer graphics, but
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with further developments of multimedia applications it will soon
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incorporate film and video images, increasing the possibility of
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naturalistic, digital environments. While the initial ideas of
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computers and VR have been around since the late 1960s, the
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technology itself was not seriously considered until the Eighties
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when the U.S. military, through NASA, began researching VR systems
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as a means to train personnel through computer simulation. It is
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now being developed by private corporations as a means of
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entertainment, design, medicine, psychological research, and a
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multitude of other applications.
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"There's three aspects to Virtual Reality," Rheingold describes.
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"One is immersion, being surrounded by a three-dimensional world;
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another one is the ability to walk around in that world, choose
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you're own point of view; and the third axis is manipulation, being
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able to reach in and manipulate it."
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The most commonly referred-to example of VR is the "holodeck"
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that appears on the television show Star Trek: The Next Generation.
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Twentieth-century consumer products are grossly crude by comparison,
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with mediocore-resolution graphics, and response times that
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sometimes make one feel like they're moving in slow-motion. It is,
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however, Virtual Reality, and although much of the technology is
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still in the research and development stage, we can clearly see the
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potential that this new medium promises.
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"Any new medium stimulates creativity, because you just fool
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around with it and see what it can do, and this can do things that
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other media could NOT do. And that in fact is the overwhelming
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thing, is that finally you can put someone inside an artificial
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world. And I think theatre, photography, cinema, paintings back to
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the cave days all had an element of this dream of creating an
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artificial world that people could be inside."
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Many in the research and development end of VR are beginning to
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see a high correlation between theatre and Virtual Reality, not just
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for entertainment, but also for Computer-Aided-Design (CAD), medical
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research, and so on.
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"I think that in theatre you willfully suspend your disbelief,"
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he comments, "and that you believe that these people up on the stage
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are in a castle in Denmark, and therefore it asks you to participate
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in creating that. In Virtual Reality you're IN a castle in Denmark,
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so the audience really has less to do with participating in the
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suspension of that disbelief."
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Rheingold has had enough experience with both consumer and
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industrial-based VR systems to make this accurate assessment. His
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curiosities have taken him as far as Japan, where in 1989 the
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Fujitsu Corporation was about to introduce plans for a long-term
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commitment in VR research. "The key distinction between VR in Japan
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and the United States," he writes in his book, "is that VR is
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integrated into Japan's industrial policy, and the United States
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does not have an industrial policy."
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"Clearly all of these laboratory prototypes have proved to be
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useful," he mentions in our conversation, "and the possibility of
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using them to do useful things in various businesses has proved to
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be accurate. We're just beginning to see the tools others might use
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emerge from that. Ford Motor Company is just beginning to use
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Virtual Reality to design automobiles. So all that stuff in the
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book I was predicting of things that might be useful to do in the
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commercial world, and that those commercial developments would drive
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the technology to the point that artists could use it (is beginning
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to happen). That's what's happened with computer graphics. If
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General Motors didn't need to use Computer Aided Design (CAD) we
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wouldn't have artists doing computer graphics today. So that
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necessary step of industry adopting it has happened."
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Over the last few years society has developed a popular interest
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in VR, almost to the point where to many it feels like a fad.
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Rheingold responds:
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"I think part of it is this old dream that theatre and cinema
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and the other arts have been striving towards, the creation of this
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artificial experience. And I think part of it is people's hopes and
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fears about what technology has done to the world. We're placing
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many of our genuine experiences with artificial ones. And like I
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said, people's hopes and fears; some people think it's a great
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thing, others feel it's a terrible thing. Who has any particular
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love for military or medical technology? We want it when we need
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it, but do we lust for it, spend our days entranced by it?
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Entertainment technology, however, eats our time, occupies or
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dreams, and empties our wallets. I think more homes have
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televisions than indoor plumbing."
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In certain educational institutions, VR is now being
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experimented with by artists as a new medium of expression.
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"An artist is going to want to have some real tools, and those
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are just being developed now. It's going to be a few more years
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before a sufficiently wide population of artists get their hands on
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the tools. The lucky one's who get to Harvard or Banff Centre for
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the Arts or Carnegie-Mellan (University) will be able to get their
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hands on it now, but it will be some time before the stuff
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propagates."
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He then goes on to describe a new theatre in Las Vegas which was
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designed by Douglas Trumbel. "Luxor" is a thirty-story pyramid into
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which he has designed three theatres which give an immersive,
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three-dimensional effect. Through the use of wrap-around screens,
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3-D glasses, and motion platforms which move in correspondence with
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the action on the screens, Luxor provides the feel of actually being
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in the action of the film. Strikingly similar to Morton Heilig's
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dream of The Experience Theatre, Trumbel's new theatre shows that
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through research -- and money -- what was once considered science
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fiction is slowly (or rapidly) becoming science fact, even in
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theatre. "You're right, yes," Rheingold responds. "Trumbel got the
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money from these guys in Vegas to do what Heilig wanted to do."
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But Lawrie-Shawn Borzovoy (Sarah, did I spell his name right?)
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of One World Productions in Toronto believes that the difference
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between an artist and a technician is being able to recognize the
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line that separates glitz from art. "If you cross that line it
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becomes a slide show or a multimedia show, rather than theatre. And
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that is the artistry, to be able to have an eye and to look at the
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stage and see that this is a moment where you want something to
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happen briefly, and that this is a moment where you don't want it to
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happen. So if you're just trying to impress people with technology
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that's pretty easy to do, you just throw money at it. But the
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artistry is in understanding what is appropriate for the moment that
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you're dealing with."
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As artists continue to explore that line, we will have many new
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challenges to face in the new multimedia age. In the meantime, some
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thought is also going into finding ways in which not only does
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technology influence theatre, but also the ways in which ancient
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classical theories of theatre can actually influence the way new
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technologies like VR are being developed.
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"Mimesis, which is what Aristotle said an audience gets out of a
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drama through suspension of disbelief and of participation in that
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event," Rheingold mentions, "creates an emotional reaction. And I
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think that properly done a Virtual Reality experience will have a
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greater sense of memesis, and of participation in the events."
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-end-
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AUTHOR UNKNOWN
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