“It/I”: A Theater Play Featuring an Autonomous Computer Character

“It/I” is a two-character theater play in which the human character (played by a real actor) is taunted and played with by an autonomous computer character on a computer-controlled, camera-monitored stage. The play, performed before live audiences in November 1997, brought an automatic computer char...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPresence : teleoperators and virtual environment Vol. 11; no. 5; pp. 536 - 548
Main Authors Pinhanez, Claudio S., Bobick, Aaron F.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published One Rogers Street, Cambridge, MA 02142-1209, USA MIT Press 01.10.2002
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Summary:“It/I” is a two-character theater play in which the human character (played by a real actor) is taunted and played with by an autonomous computer character on a computer-controlled, camera-monitored stage. The play, performed before live audiences in November 1997, brought an automatic computer character to a theatrical stage for the first time ever. This paper reports the experience and examines important technical developments needed for the successful production of “It/I”. In particular we describe the paradigm used to program the computer character and the ACTSCRIPT language for communication of actions and goals. Although our experiments have been restricted to physical interactive spaces, we believe that interval scripts and ACTSCRIPT can successfully address the control and management of any virtual environment with a complex temporal structure or a strong underlying narrative.
Bibliography:October, 2002
ISSN:1054-7460
1531-3263
DOI:10.1162/105474602320935865