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PhD Website Announcement » read article

posted by ian grant on July 29, 2010 at 6:26 pm | in announcement, creative code, digital puppetry, graphics, installation, performance, physical computing | 1 comment

After some time off blogging, I am back with an announcement of a major piece of ongoing work in the form of a PhD!

PhD Website

Link: http://www.daisyrust.com/phd/

PhD Title

Expressivity and the Digital Puppet:
Mechanical, Digital and Virtual Objects
in Games, Art and Performance

PhD Summary: The aims of the investigation

The current PhD study explores the interface between traditional puppetry and emerging computer technologies, through historical, theoretical enquiry, case studies and practical experiments. The thesis will evaluate and test with users (puppeteers, audiences, animators and programmers) the expressive qualities of innovative interactive systems.

In this context ‘innovative’ means both emerging, new, technology or established technologies that are being re-defined by their communities of use and are finding new applications within the performing arts, particularly puppetry performance.

(1) I aim to explore the related contexts of digital puppetry, real-time animation, mimetic and non-mimetic kinetic objects, automata, ‘cybernetic sculpture’, performance systems and the technological interfaces to such phenomena.

(2) I aim to create evaluate and create puppet/object theatre performances/installations that use original software and hardware systems that are designed to explore ‘performance expressivity’, with reference to relevant historical, art, entertainment and technological precedents.

(3) I wish to theorise and form a taxonomy of ‘expressivity’ in relationship to digital domains and puppetry. By ‘expressivity’, I refer to different domains of action including: voice, face, body, hands and gesture.