Haptic Enhancements to Live Theatre and Virtual Production Environments
Project partners: Abertay University, Scottish Youth Theatre
A collaboration between Abertay University and Scottish Youth Theatre (SYT) has developed and delivered customised haptic devices to enhance actor and audience immersion during Virtual Production (VP) and live theatre performances.
Haptic suits like Telsasuits deliver tactile feedback across the user’s body. They provide physiological data including ECG (Electrocardiogram) and variable heart rate which offer insights into the wearer’s emotions. The technology offers new opportunities to integrate physical responses into theatre performances, creating new and exciting audience experiences.
Using customised haptic suits alongside other customised haptic devices including holdable objects and seating, the project team explored how the technologies could be used to connect audience participants with the performer’s interpretation of a scene through the sense of touch.
Through multiple testing and rehearsal phases, the project team investigated both performer and audience perspectives. Performers reported that the sensations created through the suits made them feel more immersed in the environment they were performing in, compared to that of other haptic devices including gaming controllers or Virtual Reality headsets.
The haptic sensations of the suits also enhanced the performers’ own feelings of movement and focus on their bodies.
Audience participants reported that they did to some extent feel more connected to the performers and immersed in the performance space. However, audiences also reflected that certain elements (primarily the number of haptic sensations available for audience members and the methods in which they worked) could be pushed further or more emphasised in an audience’s experience.
Research and development activities culminated at a showcase performance event at Abertay University’s CoSTAR Realtime Lab, state of the art production studios at Water’s Edge in Dundee. With attendees including industry experts and theatre practitioners, the event facilitated a space for the project team to gain a vast array of audience responses and feedback on their experience of the performance.
The collaboration’s deep exploration of haptics, electronics, and user evaluation has revealed new strands of structured haptics that the research team plans to develop and integrate into future projects.
This project is one of four initiatives supported by the XR Network+ Prototyping, Impact and Acceleration (PIA) round two funding call. Grants of up to £10,000 were awarded to researchers at UK universities to develop new ideas and complete existing research related to Virtual Production. The projects took place over a six month period, commencing from September 2024.
Image credit to Abertay University.
Categories: Arts, Performance, Research, Technology