High Performance Computing meets Performance Art

Third Life Project is a networked international arts-based research collaboration of the artists Otto Krause and Milan Loviška with a team of computer scientists and engineers from Simula Research Laboratory in Oslo, MIH Media Laboratory at the Stellenbosch University and Embedded Systems Group at the University of Duisburg-Essen. They explored the potential of virtual actions to perform real actions causing extravirtual physical effects on physical objects and effects on the bodily and mental states and behaviours of both performers and audience.
In October 2015, the team of eleven presented their results in the three performance lectures at WUK Vienna staging the real-time video game of Minecraft in a theatrical performance. The smart stage combined virtual environments, novel tracking technologies and connected objects of the Internet of Things (IoT), most of them designed and developed by the project members. Each performance was directly followed by a discussion with the spectators to give an insight in how the artists and also the experts work, and to exchange ideas about performing with mixed reality and ubiquitous technologies.

Concept / Dramaturgy / Scenography / Virtual environments / Performance: Otto Krause & Milan Loviška

Scientific and technological realization:
Minecraft expertise and gesture control: Herman Engelbrecht, Jason Bradley Nel (MIH Media Lab, Stellenbosch University, South Africa)
Tracking: Carsten Griwodz, Lilian Calvet (Simula Research Lab & LABO Mixed Realities, Norway)
Cyberphysical devices and Non-Player-Characters: Gregor Schiele, Alwyn Burger, Stephan Schmeißer, Christopher Cichiwskyj (Embedded Systems, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany)
Server: René Griessl (Bielefeld University, Germany)

Premiere @ WUK Vienna, 08 October 2015

A co-production of Territorium KV and WUK performing arts in Vienna
With the support of the City of Vienna's Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Arts and Culture Division of the Federal Chancellery of Austria. With the contribution from the FiPS project funded from the EU's 7th Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 609757. Thanks to LABO Mixed Realities, the EU project POPART funded under grant agreement no 644874, and the Bielefeld University.

Artist talk @ 22nd International Symposium on Electronic Art ISEA2016 Hong Kong Cultural R>evolution, with the kind support of the Arts and Culture Division of the Federal Chancellery of Austria
Demo of the technological interface @ ACM Multimedia Systems 2016 Conference in Klagenfurt am Wörthersee, Austria

Publications:
Loviška, M., Krause, O., Griwodz, C., Schiele, G., Engelbrecht, H.A. (2017). Third Life Project. In: J. Weijdom, Mixed Reality and the Theatre of the Future, IETM Fresh Perspectives, Vol. 6, p. 41-47, ISBN 978-2-930897-13-4.
Loviška, M., Krause, O., Engelbrecht, H. A., Nel, J. B., Schiele, G., Burger, A., Schmeißer, S., Cichiwskyj, C., Calvet, L., Griwodz, C., Halvorsen, P. (2016, May 10-13). Immersed Gaming in Minecraft. In: Proceedings of the ACM Multimedia Systems 2016 Conference (MMSys '16), Klagenfurt, Austria.

Photo: eSeL.at - Lorenz Seidler, eSeL.at - Joanna Pianka, 2015