Hello fellow 'Dreammachiners',
WORKSHOP IMPRESSIONS DAY 1:
I arrived at 13.00 - so just in time for lunch! 
but missed the mornings discussions around game narrative. After lunch we jumped straight into the 'blue-screen' sessions. Initial impressions for working with this mode and within the gaming landscape are:
Perspective:
- - Camera position vs performers positions vs game perspective (avatar and landscape) - Field of vision of the performer in relation to game landscape, avatar and objects - 'who-sees-who' and 'how'
Control:
- - Performers 'lack' of immediate control of the game landscape in relation to speed; object size; terrain - Working with the affordances and constraints of the above 'controls'
Communication forms:
- - Human-Avatar and Human-Human communication (gesture, verbal etc) within the game - what is needed?
Simplicity - clarity of action Replication - copying avatar modes Mis-match or break-down in communications between avatar and human
- - Working with and playing off, the 'modes' of action that the game dictates - death; shooting etc
Landscape or game scenography:
- - Striping back the game terrain/scenography - eg grass and sky - Working with a 'loaded' game terrain/scenography - eg dungeon - Working with the breaks and leakages - slipping over; covering up; disappearing
Personally, I found less-is-more, worked best, plus I'm not so attracted to some of the game landscapes that we we're playing with. We all pitched in a few ideas or 'directed' others in working in the environment - relating to my own practice, working with the game landscape like any 'site' brings its challenges and in this case a very particular aesthetic (old style computer games; 80s children TV; pop-video montage).
I did find the idea of working with a constant or static object in the landscape as a useful starting point - ie the idea of loading the game with dead avatars and dead 'real' characters and building the image or visual narrative from that point.
For the future, it might have been useful to have played some 'warm-up'games before hand, particularly if we we're going to work with the body-camera-game engine in the way that we did - but overall an insightful first day, into some of the ways to begin to work with this medium.
WORKSHOP IMPRESSIONS DAY 2:
Nice kick off with Steve's presentation, bringing to mind the possibilities and limitations of this medium in relation to communication and intimacy - thoughts, discussion etc, crossing over with the recent 'Intimacy' conference/workshop at Goldsmith (see below link).
'Intimacy, Across Visceral and Digital Performance' http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/intimacy/
Question: In virtual scenarios, where we have to focus most of our attention on our locative precepts and orientation - what levels of communication, intimacy etc can we actually achieve? Question: What is the spectrum of communication that we achieve in different forms of virtual game-like worlds?
Joined Kyra and Barry and created our characters in Second Life. Although I'd seen Second Life had not roamed about it before or created a character, which was good to do - great range of parts to make your avatar. Interesting labels as always, esp 'male' vs 'female' character parts. After lunch Matt, presented his work on placing sounds within games using Unreal and Quake - found this very interesting work, related to recent work, some of my work project interests and to Ale's links to 'Select Park'.
Jon, Steve, Si and Simon's presentation of 'Endgame' in Second Life - very solid example to close the day with - highlighting how forms of theatre can translate into Second Life and the analogous to more traditional forms of theatre-making, puppetry etc - but also highlighting again that 'less-is-more' in this environment - ie, focusing on 1-2 character movements etc; using a script to anchor and keep focused the Second Life play etc.
Sita's ideas around using the Wii and her performer-operator research/practice work, also very interesting - again providing some examples of how to go forward. As with Jon et al's piece, the actions of the 'real' performers becoming very interesting - and even demanding more your focus - than what's on screen - which lead to brief discussions about how this 'divide' could be reduced - also made me think of how to play more with the divide and performance presence in the different settings/locations.
Closed the day, with a quick whip round people's current work, which highlighted not only the range of practice currently happening in this field but also the convergence as well as boundary slipping that is now common to so called 'new media' work. All good stuff - thanks to everyone, really interesting two days.
PS: If you want to check out more about the stuff I've been up too you can view it on:
Polar Produce - Bristol based company that I work within ["www.polarproduce.org"]
N.I.P. - New Interfaces for Performance (the project I briefly showed and referred to) ["www.newinterfaces.net"]
OFFLOAD - Systems and Net Art on programme on nature, sustainability and ecology ["www.offloadfestival.org"]