At Volograms, we love blurring the lines between virtual and real. In pursuit of this goal, we present Augmented Play, a reinterpretation of Samuel Beckett’s famous 1963 text, Play, in collaboration with V-SENSE, the visual computing research group at Trinity College Dublin, and the Trinity Centre for Beckett Studies.
As a tech startup, we love balancing tech with art and culture. This project is exactly that, as said by Prof. Aljosa Smolic, an exploration of the interplay between cutting-edge technology and creative art. When was the last time you took out time to read a classic or go to a theatre? Augmented Play was developed with a view to engaging 21st century viewership, tech savvy people that access content increasingly via immersive technologies. This collaborative project pushes the limits in consumable video and film by harnessing new digital interactive technologies, in a way that makes us believe that this version would be highly approved by Samuel Beckett, who was quite the innovator himself.
In our reimagination of Play, we have assigned the role of interrogator to You, the viewer. You’re not only in the same virtual space as the actors, but you are also able to walk around freely and control how the play proceeds - the actors speak when activated by your gaze and are silent when you are not looking at them!
As you only see the actors’ heads in this play, we didn’t need a very fancy setup to capture them. Instead, we gathered five DSLRs and an improvised green screen and captured the actors inside the urn they normally use in the theatre so the environment was as familiar as possible for them. As you can see in the photo above, the director of the play, Nicholas Johnson, was able to give them instructions perfectly well.
We used our volumetric reconstruction algorithms to create the volograms of the actors using just these five standard videos. The environment with the urns and the spatial audio was created using Unity, and the final app was built for the Magic Leap One, the best headset in the market for these mixed reality experiences.
With this project, we aim to demonstrate that the use of volumetric video in these type of productions is not only feasible but also accessible - sophisticated immersive content is not available exclusively for deep pockets! Further, we intend to address the question of narrative progression in an immersive environment, which is a key concern in the creative culture sector. We are adopting computer game principles to storytelling, creating a non-linear narrative, resulting in an experience of active immersion instead of passive observation. We are placing the viewer at the centre of the storytelling process, empowering them to explore, discover and decode the story.
The text has been interpreted previously for webcast (Intermedial Play) and Virtual Reality (Virtual Play), and this AR interpretation of the Play is the final part of the trilogy, which was a two-year-practice-based research. We are grateful to V-SENSE and, of course, the Trinity Drama Department, to give us the opportunity of participating in a project as amazing as this one.
“What was most impressive was the detail of the actors’ faces, allowing the viewer to walk up close and around the urns in 360 degrees, seeing Play in a way it has never been experienced before.” — The Irish Times
We would also like to thank Magic Leap, for supporting the event where we showed Augmented Play to the public and lending us an extra device. The event was a great success and was even picked up by The Irish Times.
Immersive works are finding their way into art festivals today, and, at Volograms, we believe that more-accessible reality capture can greatly support that movement (hey, we’re here to make that happen!) We have to agree with Prof. Smolic again: AR glasses will be in a couple of years what mobile phones are today.
If you are interested in bringing volograms to your immersive project, get in touch with us! We will be happy to help!
The Volograms Team
