Wearable Theatre. The art of immersive storytelling

The research project of Markus Wintersberger and Marcus Josef Weiss Wearable Theatre. The Art of Immersive Storytelling, aims at investigating the dramatic, narrative and structural potential of complex Virtual reality (VR). The goal is the integration and utilization of the 360 VR medium as an immersive experiential form for literary material. As a point of initiation for the research process works have been chosen by authors whose narrative style is both existential and atmospheric, in particular Fyodor Dostoyevski, Albert Camus and Max Frisch. Key scenes from the novels Demons, The Fall and Homo Faber serve as the basis for the dramatic and technical production process, involving the adapting of the figures, action and scenic-structural progression in a 360 VR shooting script. In order to combine the technical potential and essentials of 360 VR production appropriately with a literary foundation, the most important aesthetic variables central to a 360 VR adaptation have been worked out and specified. Additionally, two central key principles governing VR staging have been isolated and determined: Points of Orientation, meaning the different dramatic possibilities of orienting the User in a VR-space as well as the resulting experiential potential and Points of Attention, meaning the entire range of dramatic options for guiding the attention of the User and the resulting potential for narrative suspense. The research project structures and explains the aesthetic variables in 12 experimental steps, whereby each experiment focuses on a specific aspect of 360 VR experience. The narrative perspectives of the selected literary sequences will be combined with the aesthetic variables with the clear goal of using the visual, acoustic and atmospheric possibilities in a 360 VR to their fullest dramatic potential. The experiments are specifically concentrated on the examination of: The possibilities for portrayal and characterisation of the active figure in a VR-space The synchronisation or linking of the visual and acoustic perception of the protagonist (actor) and that of the User as it relates to the potential conflict and the individual dramatic situation Transformation of the written narrative context into a VR experiential space. In a fourth methodical step, an expert panel of international prize-winning artists and researchers has been acquired for the project to evaluate the experiments in terms of their emotional transfer and immersive experiential value. This panel is comprised of authors, directors, media-artists, composers and media scientists and will annually evaluate the results achieved, and deliberate upon them critically in subsequent discussion with the project leaders, researchers and participating artists. Viewed from the standpoint of literary and media art, it is to be expected that the acquired information will reveal new perspectives and the narrative possibilities of VR dramatisation, thereby initiating an independent artistic form of expression, perception and experience. The experiential form: Wearable Theatre.

The art research project "Wearable Theater. The Art of Immersive Storytelling" examined the potential of storytelling in VR during its three-year term. The project team consisted of artists and researchers from the UAS St. Pölten and the Open Acting Academy Vienna. The research project identified and structured aesthetic variables and applied them to 12 experimental research scenarios, each focusing on a specific aspect of the sensory VR experience. The aim was to understand and master the visual, acoustic and atmospheric possibilities of 360 VR. Another aim was to combine the aesthetic variables with a narrative and create a unique immersive VR art experience. Three specific literary works were chosen to provide this narrative basis for the experimental steps. Over three years, the team carried out a series of experiments to find out how VR technology can be expanded or new perspectives for dealing with classic texts can be opened up. The core hypothesis of the Wearable Theater project is that VR and its immersive properties can achieve the same effect in relation to specific epic literary material. For our research purposes we have selected works by Dostojewkski, Camus and Frisch. The dialectic between the internal perception of the viewer and the structures, dimensions and spatial, temporal configurations inside and outside of the VR headsets formed the fulcrum around which the project could develop in a series of experiments. A crucial aspect in our investigation concerns the shift of space and time and the different aspects of co-presence and what this could be. All of our channels contain aesthetic fragments that have emerged from various experimental circumstances, from singular processes that have now disappeared. However, their fragments were reintegrated as foundations and built on top of them (videos, sounds, "meshes", ...). By being recorded or "streamed" and, for example, entering the different contexts, for example, social media, the elements have already become part of an entirely different narrative that not only depicts the lost action, but encourages renewed engagement. We have some of these elements stored in a navigable archive, where they can be experienced in different relationships in a certain autonomy - in film form on our YouTube channel "PEEK Wearable Theater" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uucLGkthyDA The research project committed itself to the requirements of open knowledge and open access at the beginning of the development of the research concept. The communication of the research process and the research methodology are actively transported, archived and generated live over the entire course of the project via social media channels. The concept of theater is handed over to our media apparatus and our social media sphere and used as an open art based research laboratory - https://wearabletheatre.fhstp.ac.at