Interactive Central
Sunday, September 24, 2006
For the second year I will be working with Central School of Speech and Drama on modules where students of Theatre and of Puppetry explore interactivity, technology, and play.
Last year students used handheld GPS devices to explore their relationship to the city through walks that recalled the dérives of the Situationists. Working in pairs but with individual themes they documented their walks with photos, sketches, gesture, and stories.
Sometimes they chose to interact with the city directly.
The next day they gave individual performances based on their reactions to this method of making the familiar strange.
This linked well with our use of methods from game design to explore performative interaction and led into a discussion of conjuring. I taught the students some sleight-of-hand and led magic appreciation seminars where we looked at the performances of master conjurers and discussed the philosophies behind magic as a theatrical art.
This year we'll be using Lego Serious Play as part of an exploration of interactivity. A word of great value to both digital media types and theatre types but with little discussion between the two fields.
posted by stuart nolan @ 11:19 AM,
