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Not to be confused with digital cinema. Digital cinema refers to the use of Digital technology to distribute and project Motion pictures The final movie can be distributed via
Not to be confused with Digital Theater System. DTS (also known as Digital Theater Systems) owned by DTS Inc ( is a multi-channel digital Surround sound format used for both commercial/theatrical

Strictly, Digital theatre is a hybrid art form, gaining strength from theatre’s ability to facilitate imagination and create human connections, and digital technology’s ability extend the reach of communication and visualization. Theatre (or theater, see spelling differences) is the branch of the Performing arts defined by Bernard Beckerman as what "occurs when one A digital system uses discrete (discontinuous values usually but not always Symbolized Numerically (hence called "digital" to represent information for However, the phrase is also used in a more generic sense by companies such as Evans and Sutherland to refer to their fulldome projection technology products. Evans & Sutherland ( is a Computer firm involved in the Computer graphics field Fulldome is used to refer to immersive dome-based video projection environments

Contents

Description

Digital theatre is primarily identified by the coexistence of “live” performers and digital media in the same unbroken(1) space with a co-present audience. Electronic media are media that utilize Electronics or Electromechanical energy for the End user ( Audience) to access the content In addition to the necessity that its performance must be simultaneously “live” and digital, the event’s secondary characteristics are that its content should retain some recognizable theatre roles (through limiting the level of interactivity) and a narrative element of spoken language or text. The four conditions of digital theatre are:

  1. It is a “live” performance placing at least some performers in the same shared physical space with an audience. (2)
  2. The performance must use digital technology as an essential part of the primary artistic event. (3)
  3. The performance contains only limited levels of interactivity,(4) in that its content is shaped primarily by the artist(s) for an audience. (5)
  4. The performance’s content should contain either spoken language or text which might constitute a narrative or story, differentiating it from other events which are distinctly dance, art, or music. A narrative or story is a construct created in a suitable format (written spoken poetry prose images song Theater, or Dance) that describes a sequence of Dance (from French danser, perhaps from Frankish) is an Art form that generally refers to movement of the body usually rhythmic Art refers to a diverse range of Human activities creations and expressions that are appealing to the Senses or Emotions of a human individual Music is an Art form in which the medium is Sound organized in Time.

”Live,” digital media, interactivity, and narrative

A brief clarification of these terms in relation to Digital theatre is in order. The significance of the terms “live” or “liveness” as they occur in theatre can not be over-emphasized, as it is set in opposition to digital in order to indicate the presence of both types of communication, human and computer created. Theatre (or theater, see spelling differences) is the branch of the Performing arts defined by Bernard Beckerman as what "occurs when one A digital system uses discrete (discontinuous values usually but not always Symbolized Numerically (hence called "digital" to represent information for Rather than considering the real-time or temporality of events, digital theatre concerns the interactions of people (audience and actors) sharing the same physical space (in at least one location, if multiple audiences exist). In the case of mass broadcast, it is essential that this sharing of public space occurs at the site of the primary artistic event. (6) The next necessary condition for creating digital theatre is the presence of digital media in the performance. Digital media is not defined through the presence of one type of technology hardware or software configuration, but by its characteristics of being flexible, mutable, easily adapted, and able to be processed in real-time. Digital media (as opposed to analog media) usually refers to Electronic media that work on digital Codes. It is the ability to change not only sound and light, but also images, video, animation, and other content into triggered, manipulated, and reconstituted data which is relayed or transmitted in relation to other impulses which defines the essential nature of the digital format. Video is the technology of electronically capturing, Recording, processing storing transmitting and reconstructing a sequence of Still images The bouncing ball animation (below consists of these 6 frames Digital information has the quality of pure computational potential, which can be seen as parallel to the potential of human imagination.

The remaining characteristics of limited interactivity and narrative or spoken word are secondary and less distinct parameters. While interactivity can apply to both the interaction between humans and machines and between humans, digital theatre is primarily concerned with the levels of interactivity occurring between audience and performers (as it is facilitated through technology). (7) It is in this type of interactivity, similar to other types of heightened audience participation,(8) that the roles of message sender and receiver can dissolve to that of equal conversers, causing theatre to dissipate into conversation. The term “interactive” refers to any mutually or reciprocally active communication, whether it be a human-human or a human-machine communication.

The criteria of having narrative content through spoken language or text as part of the theatrical event is meant not to limit the range of what is already considered standard theatre (as there are examples in the works of Samuel Beckett in which the limits of verbal expression are tested), but to differentiate between that which is digital theatre and the currently more developed fields of digital dance9 and Art Technology. A narrative or story is a construct created in a suitable format (written spoken poetry prose images song Theater, or Dance) that describes a sequence of Samuel Barclay Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989 was an Irish Writer, Dramatist and poet (10) This is necessary because of the mutability between art forms utilizing technology. It is also meant to suggest a wide range of works including dance theatre involving technology and spoken words such as Troika Ranch’s The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz (Troika Ranch, 2000), to the creation of original text-based works online by performers like the Plain Text Players or collaborations such as Art Grid’s Interplay: Hallucinations, to pre-scripted works such as the classics (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest) staged with technology at the University of Kansas and the University of Georgia. The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz ( Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosencreutz anno 1459) was edited in 1616 in Strasburg (annexed by France A Midsummer Night's Dream is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare, suggested by " The Knight's Tale " from The Tempest is a comedy written by William Shakespeare. It is generally dated to 1610-11 and accepted as the last play written solely by him although The University of Kansas (often referred to as KU or just Kansas) is a public research university with campuses located in Lawrence, Kansas City The University of Georgia ( UGA) is a public research University located in Athens, Georgia, the oldest and largest of the

These criteria or limiting parameters are flexible enough to allow for a wide range of theatrical activities while refining the scope of events to those which most resemble the hybrid “live”/mediated form of theatre described as digital theatre. digital theatre is separated from the larger category of digital performance (as expressed in the overabundance of a variety of items including installations, dance concerts, Compact discs, robot fights and other events found in the Digital Performance Archive). A Compact Disc (also known as a CD) is an Optical disc used to store digital data, originally developed for storing digital audio

History

In the early 1980s, video, satellites, fax machines, and other communications equipment began to be used as methods of creating art and performance. (14) The groups Fluxes and John Cage were among the early leaders in expanding what was considered art, technology, and performance. WikipediaWikiProject Composers#Lead section --> John Milton Cage Jr With the adaptation of personal computers in the 1980s, new possibilities for creating performance communications was born. Artists like Sherrie Rabinowitz and Kit Galloway began to transition from earlier, more costly experiments with satellite transmission to experiments with the developing internet. Online communities such as The Well and interactive writing offered new models for artistic creativity. The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, normally shortened to The WELL, is one of the oldest Virtual communities in continuous operation Interactive writing is a method used in Literacy teaching, especially for young children whereby the students have the opportunity to practice their reading and writing skills With the ‘Dot Com’ boom of the 1990s, telematic artists including Roy Ascott began to develop greater significance as theatre groups like George Coates Performance Works and Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre established partnerships with software and hardware companies encouraged by the technology boom. Roy Ascott is a British artist and theorist who works with Cybernetics and Telematics. Researchers such as Claudio Pinanhez at MIT, David Saltz of The Interactive Performance Laboratory at the University of Georgia, and Mark Reaney head of the Virtual Reality Theatre Lab at the University of Kansas, as well as significant dance technology partnerships (including Riverbed and Riverbed’s work with Merce Cunningham) led to an unprecedented expansion in the use of digital technology in creating media-rich performances (including the use of motion capture, 3D stereoscopic animation, and virtual reality as in The Virtual Theatricality Lab ‘s production of The Skriker at Henry Ford Community College under the direction of Dr. The University of Kansas (often referred to as KU or just Kansas) is a public research university with campuses located in Lawrence, Kansas City See also Merce Cunningham (born April 16, 1919 in Centralia Washington, United States is an American Dancer and choreographer Motion capture, motion tracking, or mocap are terms used to describe the process of recording movement and translating the movement onto a digital model Virtual reality ( VR) is a technology which allows a user to interact with a Computer-simulated environment be it a real or imagined one Henry Ford Community College (HFCC is a public two-year college located in Dearborn Michigan. George Popovich.


Early use of mechanical and projection devices for theatrical entertainments have a long history tracing back to mechanicals of ancient Greece and medieval magic lanterns. The term ancient Greece refers to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca The magic lantern or Lanterna Magica was the ancestor of the modern Slide projector. But the most significant precursors of digital theatre can be seen in the works of the early 20th century. It is in the ideas of artists including Edward Gordon Craig, Erwin Piscator (and to a limited degree Bertolt Brecht in their joint work on Epic Theatre), Josef Svoboda, and the Bauhaus and Futurists movements that we can see the strongest connections between today’s use of digital media and live actors, and earlier, experimental theatrical use of non-human actors, broadcast technology, and filmic projections. Edward Gordon Craig ( 16 January 1872 – 29 July 1966) sometimes known as Gordon Craig was a English modernist Theatre Erwin Friedrich Maximilian Piscator ( 17 December, 1893 in Greifenstein -Ulm – 30 March, 1966) was a German Theatre (born; 10 February 1898&ndash14 August 1956 was a German Poet, Playwright, and Theatre director. Josef Svoboda (May 10 1920- April 8 2002 was a native of Czechoslovakia, began his training as an architect at the Central School of Housing in Prague ("House of Building" or "Building School" is the common term for the, a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts and was famous Futurists, or futurologists, are those who speculate about the future

The presence of these theatrical progenitors using analog media,(15) such as filmic projection, provides a bridge between Theatre and many of today’s vast array of computer-art-performance-communication experiments. Theatre (or theater, see spelling differences) is the branch of the Performing arts defined by Bernard Beckerman as what "occurs when one These past examples of theatre artists integrating their modern technology with theatre strengthens the argument that theatrical entertainment does not have to be either purist involving only “live”(16) actors on stage, or be consumed by the dominant televisual mass media, but can gain from the strengths of both types of communication. "Popular press" redirects here note that the University of Wisconsin Press publishes under the imprint "The Popular Press"

Other terminology

Digital theatre does not exist in a vacuum but in relation to other terminology. It is a type of digital performance and may accommodate many types of “live”/mediated theatre including “VR Theatre”(11) and “Computer Theatre,”(12) both of which involve specific types of computer media, “live” performers, story/words, and limited levels of interactivity. However terms such as “Desktop Theatre,”(13) using animated computer avatars in online chat-rooms without co-present audiences falls outside digital theatre into the larger category of digital performance. Likewise, digital dance may fall outside the parameters of digital theatre, if it does not contain elements of story or spoken words.

Notes

  1. Space not divided by visible solid interfaces such as walls, glass screens, or other visible barriers which perceptually divide the audience from the playing space making two (or more) rooms rather than a continuous place including both stage and audience.
  2. It is suggested that a minimal audience of two or more is needed to keep a performance from being a conversation or art piece. If additional online or mediated audiences exist, only one site need have a co-present audience/performer situation.
  3. Digital technology may be used to create, manipulate or influence content. However, the use of technology for transmission or archiving does not constitute a performance of digital theatre.
  4. Interactivity is more than choices on a navigation menu, low levels of participation or getting a desired response to a request. Sheizaf Rafaeli defines it as existing in the relay of a message, in which the third or subsequent message refers back to the first. Professor Sheizaf Rafaeli ( שיזף רפאלי) Israel (BA Haifa University M “Formally stated, interactivity is an expression of the extent that in a given series of communication exchanges, any third (or later) transmission (or message) is related to the degree to which previous exchanges referred to even earlier transmissions” (Sheizaf Rafaeli, “Interactivity, From New Media to Communication,” pages 110-34 in Advanced Communicational Science: Merging Mass and Interpersonal Processes, ed. Robert P. Hawkins, John M. Wiemann, and Suzanne Pingree [Newbury Park: Sage Publications, 1988] 111).
  5. Though some of the content may be formed or manipulated by both groups, the flow of information is primarily from message creator or sender to receiver, thus maintaining the roles of author/performer and audience (rather than dissolving those roles into equal participants in a conversation). This also excludes gaming or VR environments in which the (usually isolated) participant is the director of the action which his actions drive.
  6. While TV studio audiences may feel that they are at a public “live” performance, these performances are often edited and remixed for the benefit of their intended primary audience, the home audiences which are viewing the mass broadcast in private. Broadcasts of “Great Performances” by PBS and other theatrical events broadcast into private homes, give the TV viewers the sense that they are secondary viewers of a primary “live” event. In addition, archival or real-time web-casts which do not generate feedback influencing the “live” performances are not within the range of digital theatre. In each case, a visible interface such as TV or monitor screen, like a camera frames and interprets the original event for the viewers.
  7. An example of this is the case of internet chat which becomes the main text of be read or physically interpreted by performers on stage. Online input including content and directions can also have an effect of influencing “live” performance beyond the ability of “live” co-present audiences.
  8. E. g. happenings. A happening is a performance event or situation meant to be considered as Art.
  9. Such as the stunning visual media dance concerts like Ghostcatching, by Merce Cunningham and Riverbed, accessible online via the revamped/migrated Digital Performance Archive [1] and Merce Cunningham Dance; cf. Isabel C. Valverde, “Catching Ghosts in Ghostcatching: Choreographing Gender and Race in Riverbed/Bill T. Jones’ Virtual Dance,” accessible in a pdf version from Extensions: The Online Journal of Embodied Teaching.
  10. Such as Telematic Dreaming, by Paul Sermon, in which distant participants shared a bed through mixing projected video streams; see "Telematic Dreaming - Statement."
  11. Mark Reaney, head of the Virtual Reality Theatre Lab at the University of Kansas, investigates the use of virtual reality (“and related technologies”) in theatre. “VR Theatre” is one form or subset of digital theatre focusing on utilizing virtual reality immersion in mutual concession with traditional theatre practices (actors, directors, plays, a theatre environment). The group uses image projection and stereoscopic sets as their primary area of digital investigation.
  12. Another example of digital theatre is Computer Theatre, as defined by Claudio S. Pinhanez in his work 'Computer Theatre (in which he also gives the definition of “hyper-actor” as an actor whose expressive capabilities are extended through the use of technologies). “Computer Theatre, in my view, is about providing means to enhance the artistic possibilities and experiences of professional and amateur actors, or of audiences clearly engaged in a representational role in a performance” (Computer Theater [Cambridge: Perceptual Computing Group -- MIT Media Laboratory, 1996] (forthcoming in a revised ed. ); Pinhanez also sees this technology being explored more through dance than theatre. His writing and his productions of I/IT suggest that Computer Theatre is digital theatre.
  13. On the far end of the spectrum, outside of the parameters of digital theatre, are what are called Desktop Theater and Virtual Theatre. These are digital performances or media events which are created and presented on computers utilizing intelligent agents or synthetic characters, called avatars. Often these are interactive computer programs or online conversations. Without human actors, or group audiences, these works are computer multimedia interfaces allowing a user to play at the roles of theatre rather than being theatre. Virtual Theatre is defined by the Virtual Theatre Project at Stanford on their website as a project which “aims to provide a multimedia environment in which user can play all of the creative roles associated with producing and performing plays and stories in an improvisational theatre company. ”
  14. For more information, see Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality, ed. Randall Packer and Ken Jordan; Telepresence and Bio Art, by Eduardo Kac; and Virtual Theatres: An Introduction, by Gabriella Giannachi (London and New York: Routledge, 2004).
  15. Media, in this sense, indicates the broadcast and projection of film, video, images and other content which can, but need not be digitized. These elements are often seen as additions to traditional forms of theatre even before the use of computers to process them. The addition of computers to process visual, aural and other data allows for greater flexibility in translating visual and other information into impulses which can interact with each other and their environments in real-time. Media is also distinguished from mass media, by which primarily means TV broadcast, Film, and other communications resources owned by multi-national media corporations. Mass media is a term used to denote, as a class, that section of the media specifically conceived and designed to reach a very large audience (typically at least as large as the majority of the population of a nation state). It refers primarily to television, film, internet, and various news/entertainment corporations and their subsidiaries.
  16. Here the use of quotations signals a familiarity with the issues of mediation vs. real-time events as expressed by Phillip Auslander, yet choosing to use the term in its earlier meaning, indicating co-present human audience and actors in the same shared breathing space unrestrained by a physical barrier or perceived interface. This earlier meaning is still in standard use by digital media performers to signify the simultaneous presence of the human and the technological other. It is possible also to use the term (a)live to indicate co-presence.

See also

External links

Asian Theatre Indian Theatre See also Theatre in India, Sanskrit drama Folk theatre and dramatics can be traced to the religious ritualism A playwright, also known as a dramatist, is a person who writes dramatic literature or Drama. Stagecraft is a generic term referring to the technical aspects of theatrical film and video production Suspension of disbelief or "willing suspension of disbelief" is an aesthetic theory intended to characterize people's relationships to art Theatre techniques are procedures that facilitate a successful presentation of a play A puppet is a representational figure manipulated by a Puppeteer. Metamorphosis is a Biological process by which an Animal physically develops after Birth or hatching involving a conspicuous and relatively
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