...on collective immersion through blended reality performance
Last semester was spent developing virtual environments utilizing 3 different game engines. The first was a series of experimentally designed environments built with the Valve Source Engine. The second was a short-lived series of misadventures using the freeware OGRE engine. Finally, the last exploration ended with the development of the KRTU Jazz studios in Second Life. Having explored at least two distinct approaches, utilizing two differen platforms to develop virtual environments, I am ready to continue to delve with more depth into more specific concepts and issues involved in my work. While the running title of the preceding project was ‘Done With Ephemera,' denoting the move from the physical to the virtual, the focus now is on embracing and taking advantage of the possibilities available solely within the metaverse; Hence, ‘Done With Redundancy.'
Blended Reality Performance
What began last semester as the development of a virtual art exhibition in the Source Engine eventually turned into a music venue in an entirely separate space, the virtual world of Second Life. The KRTU space was designed in conjunction with the local San Antonio Jazz radio station, and is a space for socialization, jazz listening, accessing radio, and most importantly blended reality musical performance.
First show: Frogg Marlowe performs simultaneously to two crowds, one in real life and one in the metaverse |
Blended reality performance is the simultaneous performance of a musician or group in the real world and virtual world. It is a rather new and fledgling format of musical performance, and there are a few approaches that have been tried thus far, varying in complexity (how much of each reality is projected into the other). This semester I am organizing a number of these blended reality events, in the effort to learn about and refine the process involved in cross-mediating the virtual world and real world. This form of entertainment is one of the most interesting approaches toward bringing some parallel and cohesion between the metaverse and corporeal reality. By this point, I have begun by organizing two recent events: one in San Antonio and one in Austin.
Acting as the facilitator and organizer of the concerts, I have scheduled these past two shows, set up equipment, and moderated the event. The first show, held at the local venue Limelight , was last this past Thursday, Feb. 15 th , and was a sort of trial run to prove the concept in application. Frogg Marlowe, a popular second life musician, was the performer for this first show. The evening began with crowds gathering at Limelight, as well as Second Life users gathering at a virtual venue where Frogg's avatar or character would be performing. Frogg performed as any musician would, but his live audio was being streamed into the virtual concert venue in Second Life, accompanying his avatar playing the guitar for the virtual crowd. Secondly, since a live video stream would've posed bandwidth issues, I took photos and periodically put them on the screens on either side of the stage in Second Life. Meanwhile, we set up a projector that displayed the Second Life portion of the concert for the Limelight audience to see. The laptop hooked up to the projector was also available so that real-life audience members could interact with the other avatars and the virtual environment. In between songs, Frogg would would communicate to both audiences non-discriminately, responding vocally both to the real-life audience's comments, as well as the second-life audience's general chat contributions on screen.
What ensued was a very active phenomenological dialogue between two groups of people in two worlds.
Reality -> Metaverse |
Reality=Metaverse |
Reality <- Metaverse |
Audio (performer & audience) into SL audiences' speakers
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RL audience communicating with SL audience through microphone & laptop |
Video (performer, audience environment) onto RL screen.
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Updating Photos on SL venue big screens
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SL audience communicating with RL audience through chat on big screen |
Laptop available for RL audience to enter the virtual space. |
Performer communicating with both audiences indiscriminately |
The performer acts as the point of solid unison between the two audiences, and the music serves as the legitimizing incentive for each audience group to conglomerate. I have begun with this basic modular approach, and hope to refine the process in order to more effectively facilitate a natural interaction (both dialogically and phenomenologically) between the real and virtual audience.
The Suspension of Virtuality:
On the present and future states of art in the virtual environs.
"the image is a reflection of a profound reality,
then it denatures a profound reality,
then it masks the absence of a profound reality,
and now it has no relation to any reality whatsoever.
the image has become its own pure simulacrum."
---------------------------------------------------Baudrillard, Simulacra & Simulation
Is it correct to presume that virtuality provides ample space for an expansion of the person? Slavoj Zizek, in 'The Spectator's Malevolent Neutrality' cites Lacan, saying that 'the truth often has the structure of a fiction.' This applies to suspension within games in a very interesting way. What sort of emergent 'gameplay' ensues during these blended reality events, exhibited both by the real and virtual audience? If it is indeed some reflection of an alternate persona, hidden during daily real-life interactions under some facade or mask, then what does this say about virtual environments as a place for art exhibition? In a space offering such elasticity of interaction and a looseness of personal representation, how do people engage differently with virtualized art/performance? Conversely, how does the avatar affect the real person? In 'The Proteus Effect,' leading game theorist Nick Yee presents findings that suggest a strong resonance between the personality changes brought about through the avatar back to the player controlling it. What does this mean for artists who garner inspiration from and work within virtual environments? What can be brought back into reality from the virtual experience, and how does that changed experience effect all facets of the art process, from production to ingestion?
I am interested at the middle ground where virtual and real meet, and how the creation and ingestion of art stands on that ground.
The self-ascribed meme 'suspension of virtuality' has dual meaning. First, it is an amalgam of already deeply-investigated elements of the game studies field (immersion/engagement/emergent gameply/etc.). Relating back to truth within an ostensible fiction, it's sometimes within the context of a game, loosened from repercussion and judgement, that the user/audience member can engage experimentally with others, and with his/her own personality. ‘Emergent gameplay' describes the unpredictable changes in the dynamics of personae, ideology, behavior, and so forth, within the game environment. It is thought to be the result of this state of relaxed levity that allows the player to experiment with new modes of behaviors and ideas that'd be harder to act out in real life. Since the rulesets and dynamics between the real and virtual can differ so much, how does this effect the creation, dissemination, ingestion, and dialogue that forms around virtualized art, or art presented in the context of a virtual environment?
The second meaning of 'suspension of virtuality' involves futurism. In a complex ecosystem like a virtual world that is exponentially eradic flux, it is essential to consider the future when speaking of virtuality and its impact on any facet of life, including art. The research component of the Redundancy project will be an address of existing technologies and applications (including my own), but equally important are the very nascent and even as-of-yet impossibilities that will be realities in the near future. The idea is to create a process and approach now that will have bearing in the scope of near-future applications. The continuous development of burgeoning new platforms and technologies will serve to progressively shift the landscape and shape the debate in varying ways. This analytical component seeks to adopt this mindset of present-and-future oriented thought, and 'suspend' the analysis of virtuality in scope of the daily progressing state of tech. Most importantly...
How does the artist effect the avatar, and how does the avatar effect the artist?
In the scope of research detailing player immersion/engagement, what does collective immersion uniquely offer?
What will the landscape of virtual environments look like in the next few years, in relation to virtual exhibition and performance?
Emergent Uses: Collective Immersion
First Show: The virtual component of Frogg's performances. |
A significant depth of academic investigation has gone into the relationship between game and reality, between avatar and player. Researchers like Nick Yee, Allisson McMahan & Janet Murray have been at the vanguard of studies that detail avatar identification, mediated socialization, addiction, presence/agency/immersion. These are but a few facets that are part of an experience in which the virtual environment becomes ‘real' to the player. However, the blended reality events that I've hosted have brought to my attention an interesting dynamic, one that I've not seen before: not a single user's but an entire audience group's engagement with and manifested presence within the virtual world. Based on my observations during blended reality shows that attract different audience types, I want to investigate the phenomenon of collective immersion into a virtual space, and how the user group interacts as a whole with the blended reality performance.
An interesting dynamic formed during the first blended reality event, wherein a woman attendee (real life) began interacting with the virtual audience through the laptop connected to the projector. The whole audience could see what she was typing, and this reinforced her confidence and audacity, typing playful and even racy messages to the virtual crowd. Although she had never interacted in a virtual environment, she approached it with utmost confidence and relaxation, fueled obviously by the laughter of her peers. She was also taking cues and directions from the real crowd as to the content of her messages to the virtual crowd. Frogg, the performer, would also comment, adding to the spectacle and completing the circle of communal interaction. It is this and other emergent modes of interaction that I wish to investigate further.
Experimental Design: From space to content to avatar
On the topic of redundant design, I've already done considerable research and have addressed the issues of redundant design in the research findings of this past ephemera project. I would like to explore it much more specifically, now, particularly as it relates to blended reality performance. I've received positive feedback from the first portion of ephemera that I never completed: experimental, disjointed, non-linear spaces designed with the highly elegant and complex Source engine, and I want to investigate the possibilities of experimental design further, now within the frame of virtual performance. How can the performer or presenting artist more fully take advantage of the expansive possibilities of the virtual component of their performance? How does the artist affect the avatar and vice versa? Why place a human avatar with a guitar-strumming animation looped in front of the virtual audience, when much more is possible theatrically and interactively? How can we bring the audience more into a dialogical relationship with the performer and the apparatus? And how can the combination of orchestrated theatrics and live audience interaction better take advantage of the capabilities of the virtual space? How can we make it better? These are the focal points of my interest in ‘Done With Redundancy,' and I'd like to carry those sentiments over into the research component as much as possible, to hopefully synthesize some sort of answer or experiment with new solutions.
Suspending the Medium: What does the future hold?
In analysing the current state of affairs in scope of future technological capacity, admitting the drawbacks and inefficacies of the current platforms and tools are necessary. What are the major drawbacks to virtualized performance? What are the forseeable benefits? How does interaction fundamentally change the work or performance itself, and what are the most important elements to focus on, in relation to art, in the performative, productive, and exhibitionary capacities particularly? Focal elements include future virtual worlds' more nuanced and realistic emulation of reality, providing a more engaging space. Additionaly, ease of access will be an important factor to consider: for the audience, this could be cell phones equipped with virtual navigation, and for the organizer or artist, an increasingly ubiquitous access to the internet in corporeal 'third places,' such as bars, venues, and galleries. What will the landscape look like in just 3 to 5 years, when the platform is no longer nascent, when the process is no longer so experimental? We already see it happening now, and while any futurist would tell you that full precience is unrealistic, extrapolation is entirely necessary to shape the debate.
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