The Post-virtual Stage for Performing Arts

Symposium:


Session Title:
  • Performance (Papers)

Presentation Title:
  • The Post-virtual Stage for Performing Arts

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Abstract:

  • The post‑virtual stage transforms the real stage into the virtual display by projecting the virtual onto the real. In the post‑virtual stage, we can simulate stage designs, performers’ movements, lightings and other mise‑en‑scène. After the simulation, we can directly apply the virtual stage to the real stage as the post‑virtual stage. This paper proposes the post‑virtual as the second phase of media art. The first phase of media has been mainly in digitization shifting our physical world into the virtual world of computer. When “the virtual bleeds into the reality,” the post‑virtual is an entity in reality from the virtual, and the output of media artworks follows the physical condition based on physical computing in reality. Beyond the projection mapping and the physical computing, the post‑virtual stage transforms the real physical stage into the virtual.  Any shape of stage for performing arts can be changed into the virtually produced stage interacting with its performers or objects. Using depth camera (Kinect) and projector with computer, the real stage synchronizes with the virtual stage. Point‑based marking techniques enable the floor, the background and the sides of the stage to be differentiated one another and synchronized for the projection. This technique can be done by pointing designated walls on the image taken by Kinect. Four areas, top‑left, top‑right, bottom‑left and bottom‑right, are positioned by their center point, and all three dimensions are working simultaneously with one projector. And the projected environment is interactive with the object or the performer on the stage using TCP/IP communication. This project could work for performing arts directors or designers, simply for planning or for actual performances. The ephemeral repatriation of the virtual is neither the virtual as it were, nor reality as it was. The post‑virtual stage is composed of virtually produced mise‑en‑scène and real performers that can be simulated in advance. A new reality is discovered as the post‑virtual in our expanding scenes of technologies by transforming the physical world into the virtual display.

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