Human trials: an experiment in intermedia performance

Abstract

Human Trials is simultaneously a public/private and embodied/disembodied performance. One user enters an immersive virtual environment and is led on an absurd quest. The challenges appear to be about control and the choices one makes in using power; but the games are rigged, the characters are duplicitous, the quest is a decoy, and the underlying test is how to cope with disempowerment. Meanwhile the experience is screened for a voyeuristic audience primed by reality TV. The audience members simultaneously watch multiple viewpoints of the virtual world, while live performers, networked into the virtual environment, attempt to entangle the protagonist in their improvisational machinations. The project combines virtual reality, networking, and artificial intelligence technologies.

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Index Terms

• Applied computing

  • Arts and humanities

• Computing methodologies

  • Artificial intelligence

    • Philosophical/theoretical foundations of artificial intelligence

  • Computer graphics