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Virtual Reality in the Theatre
March 07, 2000As all cinema-goers have noticed, the use of computers in film-making has had considerable impact, helping to create special effects that would have been impossible just a decade ago. Now, thanks to the work of a visiting academic at the University of Kent at Canterbury (UKC), computers are being used to add a whole new dimension to theatre production. According to Mark Reaney, it is now possible to create a 3-D, virtual stage set which can be changed or altered in a matter of seconds and which is limited only by the designer's imagination.
Reaney has been working with virtual reality in the theatre for more than six years. Together with colleagues in UKC's School of Drama, Film and Visual Arts, he is currently using this new technique on a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream which will be staged later this year at the University of Kent. A professor at the University of Kansas, he first used visual reality in a production of The Adding Machine in 1994. Since then, working with ever-evolving technology, he has pushed the boundaries of stage set design to a point where he describes the scenery as being 'live'. 'For example, you can have apparently solid objects moving through the air.'
The advantages of using virtual reality in the theatre are many. Not least is that it allows for greater experimentation. However, warns Reaney, it is not an easy option. 'It is much harder for designers to work with and it's very labour intensive.' Nor will it replace the more traditional aspects of stage design, but what it does do is free the stage from its physical confines, possibly making the term 'stage-bound' obsolete.
Mark Reaney is with the University of Kent on a six-month Leverhulme Scholarship from the University of Kansas, where he heads the Institute for the Exploration of Virtual Realities. He is currently working with the Kent Interactive Digital Design Studio, a UKC-based group developing the use of computers in theatrical visualization, with both historical and practical ends
Kent, University of
Mark Reaney is with the University of Kent on a six-month Leverhulme Scholarship from the University of Kansas, where he heads the Institute for the Exploration of Virtual Realities. He is currently working with the Kent Interactive Digital Design Studio, a UKC-based group developing the use of computers in theatrical visualization, with both historical and practical ends
Kent, University of
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