Category Archives: Design

Stage Design

March 9, 2015 Bahar

The design is composed of some filled and empty frames adjacent to each other with a hierarchical relation. The characters’ thoughts, emotions, observations and environment around themselves are represented on some of the frames via projection.

From back to front of the stage, it has been aimed to create a flow which both build a connection between large screens and bench in terms of proportions result a common design language on stage and allow performer to experience the space in different parts of the stage in a different way with their bodies.

The flow from one frame to the other has been obtained by asymmetry. The positions of the frames as each other have been determined as to answer the need of a promenade which performers can walk through and a space in front of the largest frame for performers using the interactivity that this frame has.

The frames which are projected are filled with fabrics. Some of the frames are not projected are filled with paper or folio due to some aesthetical reasons and the others left as empty to obtain a more transparent look from the perspective of audience.

Concept, Design

Bench and thoughts story board

January 29, 2015 Tamim

Concept, Design

Bench Storyboard

January 22, 2015 Tamim

Design

Soapy Storyboard of Soap

January 22, 2015 Marie

Soapy Heart of Soap

Soapy Shape of Soap

Design

Soapy Shape of Soap

January 22, 2015 Marie

Soapy Heart of Soap

Soapy Storyboard of Soap

„Djamel and Marie will make the soap.“

Puh okay, challenge accepted! was the first impression.

How a soap could look like, everybody knows. There are so many different formes of soaps, it could be a star, a heart, a angel in a moon. Everything.

So how we could define our soap?

First we talked about what a Soap should emanate in our Theater and whats the basic value of a soap. A Soap stands for Purity, innocence and in the old time affluence.

We thought about a soap dispenser, which we can fill with some liquid and leds

The Liquid could scatter the light of the leds perfectly. But because of the shape we dont like we want to think about another ideas. The next idea was a breathing Soap. The soap should interactive react with getting bigger and smaller. We thought about a Wonderball, and also the form.. We had to find another solution for the shape, we couldnt copy the wonderball shape. We really liked this idea, but it was too heavy too build and develop this for us in this time.

After this breathing thing, we want something who can also do something visual.

Out of a conversation the idea with a soapbubblegun has begun.

For the shape we thought about a lot of small bubbels out of plastik with a case of transparent textil.

It should look like a big bubble out of small bubbles.

With this idea we came to our current idea. It is easier to deep drawe a form which look like our imagination, then make a lot of small bubbles.

So we made out of putty and a stainless steel bowl our form, which look like a big part of foam.

There were some problems pulling the putty out of our form, because the putty also melted. But now we have our finish form for the case of soap

Inside we have a white styrofoam bowl, which is easier to handle with the technical parts.

You can easiely put some led on it or make a whole with heat in it.

The soapbubblegun will make bubbles hopefully directly in the air, If it will not work it will make bubbles to the left or to the right side.

Concept, Design

Storyboard – Kinect Use in “Dusk”

January 22, 2015 Claire

Prologue “Introducing the City” (2-3 Min)

Dark Stage, A basic city-sound-atmo begins.
GORTSBY enters through the door behind the audience and is walking forward to the stage.

GORTSBY:
Under that foggy sunset London glowed,
Like one huge cob-webbed flagon of old wine.

Mode 1Kinect: Press key. A dark city skyline is shown. GORTSBY walks along the skyline and behind him windows of the city houses turn on.

GORTSBY:
And, as I walked down Fleet Street,
the soft sky Mowed thro’ the roaring thoroughfares…

GORTSBY: …transfused Their hard sharp outlines, blurred the throngs of black On either pavement, blurred the rolling stream Of red and yellow busses, till the town Turned to a golden suburb of the clouds.

By pressing key in Processing switch to
Mode 2: The view of the skyline turns cloudy and disappears in fog.

or alternative transition:

By pressing key in Processing switch to
Mode 3: A screen full of fog. Kinect: By waving GORTSBY can wave away parts of the fog and uncover parts of the city skyline which shows now basically a park with some windows of houses in the background.

Scene 1 „Walking to the park “ (2-3 Min)

No Kinect

Scene 2 „Norman Gortsby“ (5 Min) Introduction into Gortsbys thoughts

No Kinect

Scene 3 „Elder man/ forlorn orchestra“ (3-4 Min)

Evtl. Mode 4: Video as background-projection with Park scene, moving sky and fog. No Kinect Interaction.

The ELDERLY MAN enters the stage. He is slowly walking out of the shadow, heading to the bench and sits down next to Gortsby After THE ELDERLY MAN sits down, through the performers movements the sound changes into a tragic – funny orchestral soundscape, illustrating the elderly gentleman as member of a forlorn orchestra, a tragic and funny figure. A pale half-light surrounds the elderly man while being subtly observed by GORTSBY.

Scene 4 „Younger man“ (10 Min)

Evtl. Mode 4: Video London Park, moving sky and fog. No Kinect Interaction

The ELDERLY MAN leaves. At the same time a YOUNG MAN appears . He is fairly well dressed but scarcely more cheerful of mien than his predecessor. He approaches Gortsby and plunks down on the bench with curses.

YOUNG MAN: Damn it! Why is something like this always happening to me?!

Short break; feeling of being expected to take due notice after this demonstration GORTSBY starts the conversation.

GORTSBY: You don’t seem in a very good temper. The young man turnes to him with a look of disarming frankness which puts Gortsby instantly on his guard. 

YOUNG MAN [thrilled, with loud voice]: You wouldn’t be in a good temper if you were in the fix I’m in. I’ve done the silliest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

GORTSBY [calmly]: Yes?

YOUNG MAN: Came up this afternoon, meaning to stay at the Patagonian Hotel in Berkshire Square when I got there I found it had been pulled down some weeks ago and a cinema theatre run up on the site. The taxi driver recommended me to another hotel some way off and I went there. I just sent a letter to my people, giving them the address, and then I went out to buy some soap — I’d forgotten to pack any and I hate using hotel soap. Then I strolled about a bit, had a drink at a bar and looked at the shops, and when I came to turn my steps back to the hotel I suddenly realized that I didn’t remember its name or even what street it was in. There’s a nice predicament for a fellow who hasn’t any friends or connections in London! Of course I can wire to my people for the address, but they won’t have got my letter till to-morrow; meantime I’m without any money, came out with about a shilling on me, which went in buying the soap and getting the drink, and here I am, wandering about with two pence in my pocket and nowhere to go for the night.

Long Break.

YOUNG MAN [with an embarrassed voice]: I suppose you think I’ve spun you rather an impossible yarn.

GORTSBY [objectively]: Not at all impossible. I remember doing exactly the same thing once in a foreign capital, and on that occasion there were two of us, which made it more remarkable. Luckily we remembered that the hotel was on a sort of canal, and when we struck the canal we were able to find our way back to the hotel.

YOUNG MAN [sensitively]: In a foreign city I wouldn’t mind so much. One could go to one’s Consul and get the requisite help from him. Here in one’s own land one is far more derelict if one gets into a fix. Unless I can find some decent chap to swallow my story and lend me some money I seem likely to spend the night on the Embankment. [with a warm voice in hopes that Gortby believes him] I’m glad, anyhow, that you don’t think the story outrageously improbable.

GORTSBY [slowly]: Of course the weak point of your story is that you can’t produce the soap.

The YOUNG MAN sat forward hurriedly, felt rapidly in the pockets of his overcoat, and then jumped to his feet.

YOUNG MAN [muttering angrily]: I must have lost it. GORTSBY: To lose an hotel and a cake of soap on one afternoon suggests willful carelessness…

The YOUNG MAN scarcely waited to hear the end of the remark. He flitted away down the path, his head held high, with an air of somewhat jaded jauntiness.

Scene 5 „The Soap“ (5 Min)

GORTSBY is watching the YOUNG MAN while he is leaving. GORTSBY is sitting and thinking about the Young Man’s story. He is not thinking what is going on around himself (in city or park), he is just focused on what younger man told him.

GORTSBY: It was a pity, the going out to get one’s own soap was the one convincing touch in the whole story…
London Skyline with Park Projection stops.

Introduction into the soap-theme. Visualizations of Gortsbys thoughts (Visual connota- tions about why it was the only convincing touch in the whole story and these connota- tions might be in relation with some concepts like soap-process, cleanliness, purity, inno- cence etc.) influenced by his voice.

[…]

Scene 6 „Meeting of Gortsby & Younger man“ (3 Min)

No Kinect or Projection

Scene 7 „The Turn“ (3 Min)

GORTSBY: Poor boy, he as nearly as possible broke down. I don ́t wonder either, the relief from his quandary must have been acute. Its a lesson to me not to be too clever in judging by circumstances.

Mode 6: London Skyline Kinect same principle as first scene: GORTSBY uncovers Advertisements (see below) while walking in front of the screen. Visualization of making his way back through a lot of advertisements for soap and hotels. The style is similar to the beginning scene. He passes by a post office and a cinema with a sign on it “Patagonian Hotel closed”. He walks along bars and shops.

Transition to Mode 7 Video of Park. Flickering lights. No Fog.

Then he is in the park again.

GORTSBY stops. Spot-Light onto the bench, where GORTSBY sees the ELDERLY MAN who sat next to him before. The ELDERLY MAN seems to search sth. poking and peering beneath the bench and on all sides of it.

GORTSBY: Have you lost anything Sir?
OLDER MAN: Yes a cake of soap.

Outro (2 Min)

No Kinect.

END

_________________________________

Click on the following link for Storyboard as row of pictures:

SB Kinect

Concept, Design, The Story

The domestication of thoughts

January 22, 2015 Yvonne

Concept for visualizing thoughts by using biometric Sensors

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Background:

SAKI chose the Hide Park in his shortstory DUSK as setting for Gortsbys thoughts and allegorizes them with pictures of the inside of the character Gortsby.

Gortsby visits the park to get in contact with someone or something. A park basically is something natural, but at the same time created by humans, domesticated and influenced by peoples culture and society.

Is it the same with our thoughts?

The two different encounters and Gortsbys misjudgment (amplified by the element of the soap as a symbol of domestication) show it apparently – his thoughts are a result of society influenced prejudices.

Find out more about our research on visualization of thinking/prejudice in our thoughts video .

The Design of Domesticated Thoughts:

For the projection of Gortsbys thoughts we discussed a lot of ideas about visualizing thoughts as something industrial reproduced or metaphorical like growing thought-plants.

Finally we chose a realistic „domesticated“ point of view perspective and Close Up videos of nature and contrast them with the destruction and irrationality of animated abstract forms. This visual process from a naturalistic picture to abstract forms we want to effect interactively via biometric input of the actor in our play.

Realisation:

thinking- naturalistic to irrational

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Biometric Input via Voice and Heartbeat Sensor:

We influence the visual process through biometric parameters of the actor like voice and heartbeat. Associative pictures are build up and fall apart triggered by the actors behavior.

The transformation from biometric input into projected output refers to the ambiguity between nature and domestication and is a connecting piece between actor and stage.

Find out more about how to use the Sensors in interactive projects.

thoughts on stage – have a look at our Storyboard:

Concept, Design

Kinect, Shadow and Light

January 18, 2015 Claire

Starting Point Task: Showing “Tiered Society” by using Shadow / Light and Tracking with Kinect

Pt. 1 – Conceptual Phase

Idea: Make a prologue scene which gives an atmosphere of the society before Gortsby first enters the stage.

Inspiration: „SEVENTH SENSE” from Anarchy Dance Theatre + Ultra Combos
http://youtu.be/iQlDEPLHPyQ?t=2m50s [Nov. 2014]

Light = people included in society“; Illuminated people” let white cubes grow by touching the walls

Darkness = people fallen out of society ; “Dark people” can destroy these buildings by touching them

Realization Ideas:

Tracking with Kinect which scans the stage. Being near the wall starts buildings of cubes on that wall.

Resulting Problem in conceptual content: there’s only good and bad.

Solution for this problem: Interactive Costumes which switch the illumination when they come in contact with each other. So people who where lit become dark when they meet a dark person and this dark person becomes illuminated.

Inspiration for this: „Gideon Obarzaneks Digital Moves“ http://youtu.be/qaT64TYsVgA?t=1m38s [Nov. 2014]

Technical Problem: Too difficult to realize switching of light of/around the costumes. Idea discarded.

Pt. 2.1 – Visualization Phase (Cubes)

Going on with the idea to let houses of cubes be built and rebuilt in the projection on the position of different persons on stage.

Cube: This cube is designed based on a house near Hyde Park in London where the short story originally takes place. Based on the topic „shadow and light“, it consists only of light-rays.

The cubes will grow to houses, when the light-people will come near the wall and raise their hands. When dark people come near these light-buildings they can turn them down again with a downward movement of the hand.

On the ground of the stage, lines of lights are moving like the lights of moving cars.

After that in the city will grow the park with bushes and street lights. The Stage could be split in different layers of gaze-textile on which will be projected.

Pt. 2.2 – Visualization Phase (Lights)

The idea of the stage design changed. It should now be built of abtract forms. So the resulting idea for our task was to make these forms the houses, and to project only window lights on them.The principle with the kinect stayed the same. For the park scene should be generated bushes instead of window lights. The light of a lantern in the park would be shown with theatre-spotlights.

Stadtmodul Parkmodul

For the next phase the interactive generating of the Forms should be realized with the application „Processing“.

Pt. 3 – „Processing“ Phase

The skript changed and it became clear that in our prologue-scene Gortsby will be the only performer on stage.

After having learned the basics of the application „Processing“, I tried to combine this knowledge of simple interactivity with our idea to let window lights be switched on and off.

The most easy and effective way was the following:

Window-Scene:

I created a picture which shows the tiered society by different kinds of window lights. You only can guess the houses from their lights. The rest of the pic is black except a sky which outlines the skyline of London.
With „Processing“ black bars are moving with the position of the performer so that behind Gortsby the lights will be switched on. When he goes back they turn off.

Working with fog:

a) While playing a bit more with basic functions of „Processing“ we developped a code which makes the whole scene be covered with dusk.

Now we use it as transition between the scene with the window lights and the park-scene.

Problem: In high resolution the outcome doesn’t run smooth.

b) The idea came up to let Gortsby wipe away the dusk and discover the park behind it.

For wiping away the fog we were first searching for a kind of eraser tool. But this was hard to realize. In the end we used a funktion called „painting-pixels“ and with some tricks it also worked:

The background is a pic of the park covered with fog. Where you move your hand in front of the Kinect, will be painted pixels. The colour of these pixels will be the same as the pixels on that position in a pic which shows the park without fog. So in the end the performer is painting the park without fog over the pic with the fog. But it looks as if he was revealing the scene.

For the outcome also have a look at our storyboard for Kinect use in the play.

Exploring Interactive Theatre

Category Archives: Design

Stage Design

Bench and thoughts story board

Bench Storyboard

Soapy Storyboard of Soap

Soapy Shape of Soap

Storyboard – Kinect Use in “Dusk”

The domestication of thoughts

Kinect, Shadow and Light

Welcome to our project blog!