digital lyceum

This is the third in a series of posts surveying the people and projects involved in producing lecture-style mixed reality events. If you are involved in this work, we’d love to hear from you! Please visit our contact page for more information or leave a comment below.

On March 15-26 2006, Workspace Unlimited convened a mixed-reality symposium, titled Breaking the Game, using a number of live virtual event technologies “to debate and reflect on virtual worlds, computer gaming, immersive technologies, and new possibilities for artistic practice and experience.” The project is of particular interest not only because of the mixed-reality nature of the symposium, but also because of how these technologies were employed to extend participation before, during and following the event.

In the early stages of the project, participants were asked to submit their proposals to the website around three main themes: Hybridity, Overclocking the City, and The Virtual as Interface to Self and Society. The website’s moderator then followed up with these participants to conduct and record a series of “online conversations” using Skype and iChat. The website explains, “In some instances we visited 3D worlds together to discuss work while maintaining audio links to one another.” These conversations were then posted to the site.

During the event, the website explains

“The symposium’s success depends upon participants’ commitment to ongoing interaction during the course of the event, responding to one another in a timely way, and actively uploading media in response to one another (texts, video, sound, demos, etc.).”

Video available on the website features the use of iChat and other teleconference technologies to engage remote participation during the live event.

Following the event,

“All of the symposium’s text dialogues, recorded video chats, phone interviews, and other media will eventually be ported to a 3D navigable space. Breaking the Game asks: How might the symposium itself become re-mediated as a 3D networked virtual world? How can we play with, think about, and continue to debate the workshops’ themes inside this space, using the language, tools, protocols, software, and interactive possibilities of gaming culture and technology?”

Similarly, our project seeks to understand how remote participation through mixed-reality technologies can contribute to shaping the content and experience of a live event before, during, and following its launch. Breaking the Game is an exciting example of the possibilities that mixed-reality technologies provide in exploring new forms of physical and virtual engagement in live humanities events.