Theatres in Second Life

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Theatres in Second Life
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Immersive Virtual Worlds

• Also called Multi-User Virtual Environments
• 3D, multi-user, social networking
• First one Habitat in 1986
• 30 to 40 virtual world platforms (e.g. There,
  Twinity, Habbo Hotel, Barbie Girls, Club Penguin,
  Active Worlds, Hello Kitty World, Red Light
  Center)
• Second Life Launched 2003
• Approximately 1.5 million residents
• Demographics similar to RL
• Popular because users can create content and own
  land

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THEATRON Project
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Project Leads

• Eduserv
• Kings Visualisation Lab, Centre for Computing in
  the Humanities, Kings College London
• Me, co-ordinating delivery of learning and
  teaching
• Drew (Mel) and Beta Technologies, building
• HEA Subject Centre English
• HEA Subject Centre PALATINE

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The Fools Zanni

• Gordon Duffy-McGhie
• Middlesborough College
• commedia dell'arte
• medieval pageant stages and at various locations
  around Second Life,
• Creating performances in the manner of a touring
  troupe of performers.

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Insubstantial pageants

• Gweno Williams, Professor of Creative Arts
  Education and Academic Head of CETL
• York St John University
• Renaissance drama
• Globe Theatre.
• Explore text and considers staging in different
  environments

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Integrating Film Technologies into SL

• Joff Chafer
• Coventry University
• Film production techniques
• use motion capture and colour-separation overlay
  to create performances
• document these performances in the form of both
  machinima and live film.

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Seeing Space

• Paul Brownbill
• University of Wolverhampton,
• scenography.
• students design a stage and place scenography
  within it
• explore various three-dimensional representations
  of theatre spaces.

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Virtual Poiesis

• Chris Wiggington
• University of Northumbria, Newcastle.
• theories underpinning the role of virtual worlds,
  such as posthumanism, embodiment, identity, games
  theory and digital storytelling.
• Students produce and perform a new work, writing
  for a specific stage or environment.

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Rosencrantz and Guildensternare derezzed

• Joff Chafer, Mark Childs

Presented at Researching Learning in Virtual
Environments 2008
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Staging Shakespeare in RL

• Vygotsky (1925) The Tragedy of Hamlet
• explanation of some of the peculiarities of
  Hamlet based on the technique and design of the
  Shakespearean stage
• No breaks between acts, so once character dead,
  actors had to be carried off stage
• Forces constraints, inclusions on the structure
  of the play (e.g. Four captains)

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Staging Shakespeare in SL

• Lag caused problems with speech
• Balance between automation of animation (which is
  then not acting) and manually triggered
  automations (which is then too obtrusive)
• Positioning of actors the same (due to proxemics
  or aesthetics)

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Conclusion

• Staging plays using RL conventions to an SL stage
  
• False comparison (would the reverse be any less
  difficult?)
• Have two alternative forms of virtual theatre
  there is a rationale for both but need to be
  aware of the different nature of what is being
  attempted