Two undergraduate courses conduced online during the Covid-19 pandemic, in parallel, explored performance and production techniques for remote virtual environments. A selection of scenes from The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (2005) by Stephen Adly Guirgis were rehearsed within different evolving virtual worlds, made with real-time virtual backgrounds in Zoom, shared-screen real-time 2D compositing in TouchDesigner, and a shared 3D environment in Unreal Engine. Taught by Theater … [Read more...] about Performance for Virtual Environments & Production Practice in Theater with Emerging Technologies
Courses
A sampling of courses taught or co-taught by REMAP faculty, supported by and contributing to the Center's research:
Graduate Certificate in Emerging Technologies for Performance
The UCLA Department of Theater and UCLA REMAP have established the Interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate in Emerging Technologies for Performance. Beginning in academic year 2020, graduate students from all Theater disciplines will be able to gain advanced training in the roles, impacts, socio-technical contexts, and practical design and integration strategies for emerging technologies—leading to being awarded Certificates from the Department along with their degrees upon graduation. … [Read more...] about Graduate Certificate in Emerging Technologies for Performance
Contemporary Artificial Intelligence in Live Performance
This graduate course introduces contemporary artificial intelligence techniques with a specific focus on their current and potential applications in live performance, especially theater. Oriented towards theater practitioners of all disciplines and scholars, it covers computer vision, sentiment analysis, natural language processing, and deep learning, among others. In particular, the class concentrates on techniques that are becoming widely and inexpensively available through open source … [Read more...] about Contemporary Artificial Intelligence in Live Performance
Survey of Emerging Technologies and Their Uses in Live Performance
This joint graduate-undergraduate course is surveying major emerging technologies and their potential uses within and impact on live performance---pulling from, for example, augmented and virtual reality, electronic textiles, the Internet of Things, and modern approaches to artificial intelligence. Through lectures, in-class experiments, and group research projects, the class is examining many of the technologies revolutionizing consumer markets and the daily experiences of people across the … [Read more...] about Survey of Emerging Technologies and Their Uses in Live Performance
Future Storytelling Studio
Co-taught by J. Ed Araiza (head of UCLA's MFA acting program) and REMAP Director Jeff Burke, this two-quarter, multidisciplinary studio-style course explored the intersection of text and code in live performance, through the collaborative development and staging of a new multimedia theater piece. Araiza, Burke and students created the text for the piece, Los Atlantis, and the class worked closely with REMAP artist-researchers to envision and build performance, media, and technology … [Read more...] about Future Storytelling Studio
Acting for Virtual Environments
This course focuses on synthesizing actors' gestures, actions and, ultimately, characterizations into creating scene work for motion capture and virtual environments. By using short scenes, acting, film production and animation students immerse themselves in a collaboration exploring character through different acting techniques, and playing with size and intensity of energy. Principles of acting and physical performance empower and liberate the students to create characters, explore the … [Read more...] about Acting for Virtual Environments
MIAS Digital Portfolio Course
This Moving Image Archive Studies (MIAS) seminar, taught by REMAP's Jeff Burke, explored technologies, design approaches, and motivations for creating online, media-supported critical essays using “off-the-shelf” tools and Internet standards. Students focussed their work on a quarter-long project related to their ongoing research, intended to be expanded after the class to fulfill MIAS thesis requirements. Established in 2002, UCLA’s MIAS master's degree program is jointly sponsored by … [Read more...] about MIAS Digital Portfolio Course
Location-Based and Audience-Aware Storytelling
This two-semester workshop-seminar guided students to conceptualize, author, produce and distribute "next generation" experiences. Key enabling technologies---such as wearable computing, augmented reality, GPS, and HTML5---were covered from both a conceptual and practical perspective. Experimental cinema, television and performance, new media art, oral storytelling and the design of built environments were surveyed, as challenges of interactivity, openness, and dynamic narrative structures … [Read more...] about Location-Based and Audience-Aware Storytelling
Building Virtual Worlds
This class explored the use of virtual worlds in live performance. In particular, it focused on their intersection with the real world (via projection, cameras, monitors, etc.) to create new scenographic possibilities. Students created 3D environments—built up from a combination of 3D models and 2D drawings, photographs and videos—that served as the “worlds” from which visuals were drawn in real time to create projected scenic elements for performance. The class also explored the relationship … [Read more...] about Building Virtual Worlds
Location-based Storytelling
Involving research and hands-on production, this course focused on creating non-linear cinema for mobile devices. With support from Nokia Research Hollywood, the students ultimately produced 50 minutes of edited footage, shot in 15 different places over 12 days. The locations included the Bradbury Building, Santa Monica Pier, and the Los Angeles Central Library. Jeff Burke, with Juha Hemanus and Vids Samanta (Nokia Research)---Film, Television and Digital Media 298A---Fall 2010/Spring 2011. … [Read more...] about Location-based Storytelling
Site, Set, and Media: Puppeted Architecture
This two-quarter course explored the theory and manifestations of the design of physically malleable scenery that is site-specific and incorporates projected digital media. The students’ final collaborative work was the design for an an original adaptation of Macbeth, developed by Jeff Burke, Peter Karapetkov, and Jared J. Stein. Puppeted architecture was inspired by REMAP’s work with the Rhodope International Theatre Laboratory, PURE Theatre (Charleston), and Three Chairs Theatre (Los … [Read more...] about Site, Set, and Media: Puppeted Architecture
Engaged Media Production Workshop
Urban space and media space are merging in complex, intriguing and problematic ways, suggesting new forms of personal and collective expression and new production processes. The convergence of media-gathering technologies, Wi-Fi transmission, urban sensing, mobile devices, social computing, and interpretive media databases makes the creation of locative, collective, contextual and engaged media experiences possible. Media-makers become media architects, media works become media systems, and … [Read more...] about Engaged Media Production Workshop
Interactive Multimedia Authoring
This seminar-studio course introduced the concepts and specifics of physically interactive media environments, with an emphasis on how they relate to traditional film, television, theater, and performance art practice. Technologies addressed included sensors, computer-controlled video and sound, databases, networks, and the software used to interconnect them. More recent versions of the course focused on production, though still including theory, discussion, and experimentation. Readings … [Read more...] about Interactive Multimedia Authoring