Wearable Theatre. The art of immersive storytelling

The research project of Markus Wintersberger and Marcus Josef Weiss Wearable Theatre. The Art of Immersive Storytelling, aims at investigating the dramatic, narrative and structural potential of complex Virtual reality (VR). The goal is the integration and utilization of the 360 VR medium as an immersive experiential form for literary material. As a point of initiation for the research process works have been chosen by authors whose narrative style is both existential and atmospheric, in particular Fyodor Dostoyevski, Albert Camus and Max Frisch. Key scenes from the novels Demons, The Fall and Homo Faber serve as the basis for the dramatic and technical production process, involving the adapting of the figures, action and scenic-structural progression in a 360 VR shooting script. In order to combine the technical potential and essentials of 360 VR production appropriately with a literary foundation, the most important aesthetic variables central to a 360 VR adaptation have been worked out and specified. Additionally, two central key principles governing VR staging have been isolated and determined: <U+F0B7> Points of Orientation, meaning the different dramatic possibilities of orienting the User in a VR-space as well as the resulting experiential potential and <U+F0B7> Points of Attention, meaning the entire range of dramatic options for guiding the attention of the User and the resulting potential for narrative suspense. The research project structures and explains the aesthetic variables in 12 experimental steps, whereby each experiment focuses on a specific aspect of 360 VR experience. The narrative perspectives of the selected literary sequences will be combined with the aesthetic variables with the clear goal of using the visual, acoustic and atmospheric possibilities in a 360 VR to their fullest dramatic potential. <U+F0B7> The experiments are specifically concentrated on the examination of: <U+F0B7> The possibilities for portrayal and characterisation of the active figure in a VR-space <U+F0B7> The synchronisation or linking of the visual and acoustic perception of the protagonist (actor) and that of the User as it relates to the potential conflict and the individual dramatic situation Transformation of the written narrative context into a VR experiential space. In a fourth methodical step, an expert panel of international prize-winning artists and researchers has been acquired for the project to evaluate the experiments in terms of their emotional transfer and immersive experiential value. This panel is comprised of authors, directors, media-artists, composers and media scientists and will annually evaluate the results achieved, and deliberate upon them critically in subsequent discussion with the project leaders, researchers and participating artists. Viewed from the standpoint of literary and media art, it is to be expected that the acquired information will reveal new perspectives and the narrative possibilities of VR dramatisation, thereby initiating an independent artistic form of expression, perception and experience. The experiential form: Wearable Theatre.

No additional funding sources recorded.