Arts and Technology A Creative Alliance

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Arts and TechnologyA Creative Alliance
A story about embracing. RISK UNCERTAINTY AMBIGUI
TY

• Kim Flintoff
• Keynote Address March 20, 2004
• ECAWA SIGFEST

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WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

• Gödel's Incompleteness Theory
• No logical representation exists which can prove
  its own constancy.

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Interdisciplinary Cooperation?

• ( _at_ to You, Too!!
• Scott Kim (Look Twice, Inc)
• When a Discipline becomes a way of life,
  priorities become invisible.

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Drama and Technology

• The dramatic arts are full of promising ideas for
  interface design.
• Drama has the power to engage audience members
  both emotionally and cognitively.
• We have barely begun to the scratch the surface
  in applying this body of knowledge to interface
  design.
• S Joy Mountford (Human Interface Group, Apple)

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Drama and IT Jonathan Neelands

• Students should be enabled to use IT in creative
  and imaginative contexts as an entitlement and in
  order to enhance their understanding of its
  power, how it can be used and the extent to which
  they have control over it.

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..since 1997
Lifeforms project (http//www.lifeforms.com/) gen
er8 _at_rts Awesome Festival
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..since 1997
Lost Cities MOO (QUT Brisbane)
Project Woomera Online Virtual Process Drama 94
realtime participants
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..since 1997
Active Worlds Educational Universe
http//www.activeworlds.com
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The state of play?
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Intelligent Agents?
Intelligent agents are software programs designed
to mimic human behaviour.
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New forms from new applications?
EYESWEB PROJECT http//www.infomus.dist.unige.it/e
ywindex.html
The EyesWeb open platform has been originally
conceived for the design and development of
real-time dance, music, and multimedia
applications.
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Electronic/Digital Arts?
David Haines The work uses Six degrees of
freedom for navigation. The  work uses extensive
number of  video textures with alpha channels to
create a richly cinematic environment along with
hand modelled 3d objects to make up the world.
In this prototype, navigation is via a
traditional game controller but the work will
eventually use neural feedback i.e. thought 
control for navigation.
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Electronic/Digital Arts?
Joyce Hinterding aeriology 20 km of wire
wrapped the space to form an energy gatherer.
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Digital Spaces?
levitation grounds Hinterding and Haines
http//www.sunvalleyresearch.com
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New Spaces for Enactment?
http//www.upstage.org.nz/
UpStage (NZ)
A completely new approach to online/virtual
performance, theatre and storytelling is in
development.
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CyberTheatre?
WireFire http//www.entropy8zuper.org/wirefire/
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CyberPerformance?
New interfaces provide new ways of thinking about
the world, art, design and performance.
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globally dispersed cyberformance?
A B C http//www.avatarbodycollision.org/abc/
Avatar Body Collision
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Really Virtual?
Blast Theory http//www.blasttheory.co.uk/
Uncle Roy All Around You
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Really Virtual?
Blast Theory http//www.blasttheory.co.uk/
I Like Frank in Adelaide
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Virtual-Real Research?
MRL Mixed Reality Lab http//www.mrl.nott.ac.uk/
Kevin Warwick I, Cyborg
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Predictable Future?

• When you do as you always do, you get what you
  always get.

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What about my Fing job??!!

• Many Drama teachers seem to hold a fear that
  engaging with technology will change the
  fundamental nature of their work with students.

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What about my Fing job??!!

• This is an area where ICT specialists can work to
  alleviate the fears.

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Fear of the Unknown
The birth of a new medium of communication is
both exhilarating and frightening. Any
industrial technology that dramatically extends
our capabilities also makes us uneasy by
challenging our concept of humanity
itself. Janet Horowitz Murray Hamlet on the
Holodeck
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Actors or Cyborgs
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We are the Borg
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Beyond the Interface
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Who am I today?
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Who will I be tomorrow?
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Drama as a frame for exploration?
Where else in school do we get to ask questions
and explore the human implications of
cyberculture ?
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Drama creates new metaphors?
http//peace.saumag.edu/faculty/Kardas/Courses/CS/
spratt.htm
Drama works explicitly with Metaphor we need
new metaphors to accommodate new technologies
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Collar and Tie (UK)The Adverb Project - CAMBAT
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Click to see why crime happens at night.
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Collar and Tie (UK)The Adverb Project - CAMBAT
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Collar and Tie (UK)The Adverb Project - CAMBAT

• This project could include Media, Drama, IT,
  Digital Multimedia, SOSE, English, etc..

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To the Spice Islands
This project could include Media, Drama, IT,
Digital Multimedia, SOSE, English,
etc.. http//www.csu.edu.au/faculty/arts/commun/ne
wmedia/batavia/index.html
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Computer games as theatre.
Role-playing games are theatrical in a
non-traditional but thrilling way. Players are
both actors and audience for one another, and the
events they portray often have the immediacy of
personal experience Janet Horowitz Murray
Hamlet on the Holodeck
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Computer games as theatre.
MMORPG Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing
Games
Why arent we using these as educational
role-playing environments?
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Swimming with or against the Tide?
We are surrounded by favorable and unfavorable
forces. We cannot fight against them but we can
work with them. Digital space needs to face this
ocean of different type of currents. Liliàna
Galvan
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Virtual Performance Examples
Theatre has been quick to adopt and explore
the possibilities what happened to Drama
Education?
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Virtual Performance Examples
Universities are utilising their resources to
explore possibilities how do we translate to
the classroom?
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Virtual Performance Examples
Drama teachers need to see beyond the
footlights new futures exist for our students.
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A vehicle for inclusion?
Physical, social and emotional limitations might
be challenged by engaging with technology
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The place of drama teachers
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The scope of our teaching
It is possible we may need to redefine our
function as Drama teachers. Where else will
students explore the implications of the virtual?
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The Learning Process
Group Interaction still the core
One of the positive offerings of technology such
as the Internet is the ability to engage with
multiple users in real-time. This should be
familiar territory for Drama teachers provided
they are not overwhelmed by new interfaces.
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Take the Red Pill See the Matrix

• The nature of all human interaction including
  Drama is modified in a digital world.
• Teachers need to ADD to their ways of perceiving
  and presenting Drama and Computing.

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Starting Points

• Drama and Computers
• Computers before the Drama
• Computers during the Drama
• Computers after the Drama
• Computers in the Drama
• Drama in the Computer (Virtual Spaces)

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Computers before the Drama

• Research
• Script Development
• Design Applications
• Journal expectations/goals
• Introducing Stimuli

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Computers during the Drama

• Computer stimulating action/plot
• Computer advancing action/plot
• Computer moderating pace

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Computers after the Drama

• Computer as reflection tool
• Computer as compilation tool
• Computer for script development
• Computer as forum
• Computer as archiving tool

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Computers in the Drama

• Computer as a character intelligent agents,
  computer generated personalities
• Computer as a prop
• Computer as other magic - mystery

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Drama in the Computer (Virtual Spaces)

• Drama in Virtual Environments
• Degrees of Immersion
• Text environments e-mail, IRC, ICQ, MUDs, MOOs,
  chat rooms
• Graphical Environments Palace, Alpha World,
  Blaxxun 3D Community (QUAKE engine)
• VRML simple 3D virtual reality
• The body in Virtual Space helmets, cyber suits
  and beyond.

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Classroom Practice

• Develop the NEXUS!!
• Collaboration and exploration
• RISK
• UNCERTAINTY
• AMBIGUITY
• Are good things!!!