Puppetree: a remediation of theatre, from spectatorship to co-authoring

(Short paper)

Keywords: Digital puppetry, remediation, theatre, Interactive Virtual Worlds, agency, aesthetic experience, co-authorship, interactive storytelling, perceptual computing, motion-sensing.

By drawing parallels from theatre, this paper examines new paradigms in interaction models for the viewer (user) of interactive virtual worlds. Studying the changes in the aesthetic experience of the viewer from theatre to cinema to interactive virtual worlds, changing dynamics of the author-viewer relationship across these media are highlighted. Agency of both, the author and the viewer are discussed, establishing a case for exploring interaction models based on ideas of co-authorship. Puppetree, a digital puppetry platform, has been developed as means to develop the ideas of co-authorship, taking inspiration from the position and agency of a traditional puppeteer. The platform is built with Intel’s perceptual computing that uses a motion sensing technology to detect a user’s hand and translate the movement to a puppet in a 3D environment. The direct handcontrol allows the user to experience the virtual environment as an extension of his immediate physical reality vs. immersing into an environment as an avatar. Exploring narrative structures that shape user-experience in such environments is in further scope of this work which requires an understanding of the logic of interactive storytelling in digital media.