REMAP is a key participant in a 2024 grant from the National Science Foundation to explore how to better support innovation at the intersection of creativity, culture, and technology. The project aims to develop a five- to ten-year roadmap to inform potential funders in government, philanthropy, and industry. Led by REMAP Director Jeff Burke, this project will fund a series of regional workshops across the country on this topic. It will also organize an industry summit and national … [Read more...] about Innovation, Culture, and Creativity
Research
CiBiC (Civic Bicycle Commuting)
The REMAP-led Civic Bicycle Commuting project (CiBiC) is launching a community-driven mobile app, along with a participatory media cartography, designed to enable and support bike-to-work communities of practice via co-creative cyberphysical systems. Ecosystems of cloud-supported, smartphone-based technologies are being developed to increase the number of people willing to bike to work, foster community recruitment and retention, and inform future plans for physical bicycling … [Read more...] about CiBiC (Civic Bicycle Commuting)
Performance for Virtual Environments & Production Practice in Theater with Emerging Technologies
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
UCLA TFT Future Storytelling Summer Institute 2020 (Remote Edition)
In July 2020, a multidisciplinary group of graduate students, faculty, staff, and guest mentors investigated how shared virtual environments can support “next generation narrative.” As with the previous two editions of FSSI, the 2020 Institute focused on creating a resonant storytelling experience centered on social impact themes—inspiring students to illuminate the human condition, inspire social change, and make a difference in the world—using emerging technologies: augmented reality in … [Read more...] about UCLA TFT Future Storytelling Summer Institute 2020 (Remote Edition)
A Most Favored Nation
A Most Favored Nation was an original immersive performance using augmented reality, set in the world of the Amazon Studios streaming series The Man in the High Castle. Developed over the course of 2019-202, it built on the research conducted by the Future Storytelling Summer Institute 2018. Created by REMAP Director Jeff Burke and developed by a team of faculty, students and researchers, originally intended for in-person audiences at UCLA's Freud Playhouse, the piece explored theatrical and … [Read more...] about A Most Favored Nation
UCLA TFT Future Storytelling Summer Institute 2019
From September 9-21, 2019, UCLA TFT’s Future Storytelling Summer Institute (FSSI) brought together a multidisciplinary group of graduate students, faculty, staff, and guest mentors to investigate how social impact storytelling can incorporate contemporary artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. As with the 2018 session, which used AR to bring audiences into a fantasy world as apprentices preparing to fight for their identities amid border and environmental crises, the 2019 Institute … [Read more...] about UCLA TFT Future Storytelling Summer Institute 2019
TouchDesigner+NDN Integration
REMAP is pursuing new approaches to networked video using Named Data Networking (NDN). It is using several of its own artistic productions as use cases. NDN suggests a powerful data-centric approach to video and future media formats, introduced in this paper. REMAP is researching how to use it for efficient multicasting, seamless streaming between live and stored video, and synchronization of video streams from multiple sources. Integrated with Derivative’s TouchDesigner, a visual … [Read more...] about TouchDesigner+NDN Integration
UCLA TFT Future Storytelling Summer Institute 2018
From July 9 to 28, the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television’s 2018 Future Storytelling Summer Institute brought together a multidisciplinary group of graduate students, faculty, staff, and distinguished guest artists/mentors to investigate storytelling in augmented reality (AR) and explore the unique possibilities it offers as a platform for social impact entertainment. The guiding question, at the intersection of research and practice, for the Institute was: What makes … [Read more...] about UCLA TFT Future Storytelling Summer Institute 2018
Future Storytelling Summer Institute 2014
From July 17 to August 1, 2014, a multidisciplinary group of graduate and advanced undergraduate students from the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television (TFT) explored new forms of storytelling and performance using virtual production, motion capture, and dynamic design tools. Each day, they received instruction in cutting-edge technology, and applied these skills to collaborative projects. Each evening, they rehearsed these works-in-progress while creating media at a … [Read more...] about Future Storytelling Summer Institute 2014
Bicicletas Blancas
As part of the 2017 Noviembre Electrónico Festival at the San Martín Cultural Center in Buenos Aires, REMAP's Fabian Wagmister created the Bicicletas Blancas project---inspired by the anarchist movement Provo's White Bicycle Plan from 1965, the tango La Bicicleta Blanca (Ferrer & Piazzola, 1970), and "ghost bikes" that mark cyclists' deaths on roads around the world. Wagmister biked for ten hours (from sunset to sunrise) for six consecutive nights through Buenos Aires, concluding each night … [Read more...] about Bicicletas Blancas
IMLab Summer Workshop 2012
For the summer of 2012, UCLA REMAP teamed with Public Matters, an LA-based nonprofit dedicated to creativity and civic engagement, to run a six-week workshop for Los Angeles high school students. An initiative of REMAP and California State Parks' Interpretive Media Laboratory (IMLab), with support from UCLA’s Center for Embedded Network Sensing (CENS), the program guided students to research the Los Angeles State Historic Park (LASHP), IMLab's "living laboratory" near Downtown Los Angeles, and … [Read more...] about IMLab Summer Workshop 2012
Laboratorio de Interactividad Corporal
REMAP and Open Perception's OpenPTrack Version 2 (Gnocchi) is now being used for the Laboratorio de Interactividad Corporal (Body Interactivity Laboratory) at the Centro Hipermediatico Experimental Latinoamericano (cheLA) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. A joint initiative of REMAP and cheLA, the Lab got underway this past February, and is developing three new performance pieces that "explore concepts, implications and technologies of physical tracking and augmented reality," … [Read more...] about Laboratorio de Interactividad Corporal
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
Search for Global Song
Search for Global Song is a short experimental cinema piece currently in post-production. An algorithmically evolving online film, it tells the story of three strangers from different generations, who live moments away from each other, coincidentally connected by people and places around the world, and unknowingly collaborating to create a new piece of music. Different versions of the piece were shot by different teams (in Los Angeles, Twentynine Palms, Buenos Aires, etc.), and will be … [Read more...] about Search for Global Song
PedaLúdico
The PedaLúdico Laboratory began in 2017 as a three-month research-arts residency program at the Centro Hipermediatico Experimental Latinoamericano (cheLA) in Buenos Aires. Eight artists from diverse geographic and disciplinary backgrounds collaboratively created six designs, i.e., six different data collection and documentation strategies for sensors instrumented on bicycles ridden around the city. REMAP worked with cheLA and FUNCANDO to develop an application for mobile phones, which were … [Read more...] about PedaLúdico
Wellspring
Created by REMAP's Jeff Burke and Fabian Wagmister, in collaboration with artists Michael Parker and Troy Rounseville, Wellspring is an original, digitally interactive sculpture that serves as the trailhead for the paths of the Interpretive Media Laboratory (IMLab)'s LASHP Trails App. A partnership between UCLA REMAP and California State Parks to conceive and prototype innovative approaches to interpretive technology for urban spaces, IMLab's "living laboratory" is the Los Angeles State … [Read more...] about Wellspring
ICN-Enabled Secure Edge Networking with Augmented Reality
Today’s Internet operates with the address-based TCP/IP protocol architecture developed 40 years ago, which greatly limits the full promises of new Augmented Reality (AR) applications. AR implementations face challenges in performance, scalability, and availability upon disasters. ICN-Enabled Secure Edge Networking with Augmented Reality (ICE-AR) aims to develop a new wireless network architecture to address these limitations, and provide pervasive support for emerging AR applications. To … [Read more...] about ICN-Enabled Secure Edge Networking with Augmented Reality
Interactive Science Through Technology Enhanced Play (iSTEP)
The National Science Foundation-supported Interactive Science Through Technology Enhanced Play (iSTEP) project builds on the ongoing Science Through Technology Enhanced Play (STEP) project---which has been using REMAP and Open Perception's OpenPTrack as the interface between the movements of groups of elementary school students and media. iSTEP continues STEP's investigation of socio-dramatic play and learning about scientific phenomena by adding new forms of embodied engagement with … [Read more...] about Interactive Science Through Technology Enhanced Play (iSTEP)
Science Through Technology Enhanced Play (STEP)
The National Science Foundation-supported Science Through Technology Enhanced Play (STEP) project is investigating how socio-dramatic play among elementary school students can help them understand scientific phenomena (e.g., the working of natural forces, complex behaviors of bees). STEP is instrumenting elementary school classrooms with REMAP and Open Perception's OpenPTrack as the interface between the students' movements and media. A collaboration with the UCLA Graduate School of Education … [Read more...] about Science Through Technology Enhanced Play (STEP)
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
Esteros del Ibera
Esteros del Ibera was an interactive installation in Buenos Aires that allowed groups of visitors to explore the landscape of the protected Ibera Wetlands in northwest Argentina. UCLA REMAP and Open Perception's OpenPTrack was used as the interface between the visitors' movements and the piece's media, enabling them to play through the point of view of individual animals. As individuals moved around the space, their perspectives followed as if moving through … [Read more...] about Esteros del Ibera
Entropy Bound
Entropy Bound is a full-length comedy by REMAP's Jeff Burke and Jared J. Stein currently in development, intending to fuse traditional dramaturgy and code. The script is being written to incorporate production-specific choices by producing companies, and to allow these choices to serve as subjects of media that develop over the course of the rehearsal process and run---further directing the actors' choices with each performance, thus further developing the dramaturgy. The project … [Read more...] about Entropy Bound
Navilandia AL SUR !
Navilandia AL SUR ! comprised Christmas decorations distributed and tracked throughout Buenos Aires. Found in 2001 when Fabian Wagmister acquired the abandoned warehouse that would become cheLA (Centro Hipermediatico Experimental Latinoamericano), the lights, wreaths, artificial trees, fake snow, and other ornaments were used by hospitals and nonprofits (arts, advocacy and student groups) to build resonant installations throughout the city. As the organizations took the materials and created … [Read more...] about Navilandia AL SUR !
Los Atlantis
Los Atlantis was an experimental stage piece created by J. Ed Araiza (head of UCLA's MFA acting program), REMAP Director Jeff Burke, and School of Theater, Film and Television (TFT) students. Incorporating immersive projection, online streaming, and participatory theatre techniques, the production created an evolving digital memory of the piece's location (Los Angeles), as well as of each performance and audience to impact the next. Los Atlantis followed a small band of travelers as they … [Read more...] about Los Atlantis
aboutface/Faces
A web-based installation created for the Non-Fiction/Digital Media Showcase at the the 23rd annual UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television Film Festival (June 2014), aboutface used information and photographs generated by users to give a subjective identity to the city of Los Angeles that could be examined and changed by the viewers. Audience members entered personal information and had their pictures taken, and were given the opportunity to alter their profile and manipulate the averages. A … [Read more...] about aboutface/Faces