Characters in movies and video games are created (in whole or in part) with the help of motion ca... more Characters in movies and video games are created (in whole or in part) with the help of motion capture. The essay describes the characteristics of this technology and aims to verify whether and how motion capture has influenced the actor's work. Using heterogeneous sources (websites, online magazines, newspapers and essays) the essay lists the most influential opinions and the most relevant issues within the debate about acting and digital technologies in pre- and post-production. Starting from few considerations on how the digital manipulation has heavily intervened on the final outcome of the actor's work, and taking into account the proliferation of entertainment in which the characters are a mix of live action and digital animation, the essay concludes with certain practical and theoretical considerations on how we might re-consider the actor’s tasks in these new production contexts. The paper is accompanied by an overview of the technologies used, and by a series of selected videos from the web. The essay features also an interview with John Dower, a director who has worked for the motion capture and video games and is co-founder of The Vault Mocap in UK
Storytelling, especially in the form called drama, is pervasive across cultures and ages. Though ... more Storytelling, especially in the form called drama, is pervasive across cultures and ages. Though much attention has been devoted to the preservation of the physical supports of drama (e.g., films and tapes), there is a widespread acknowledgment that such tangible heritage is the expression of an intangible notion of drama. This article introduces drama as a form of intangible cultural heritage and presents a solution for its preservation in terms of a formal encoding through a computational ontology.
After the review of a formal representation of drama, called Drammar, developed in previous works, we show how an abstraction of drama can be encoded into a digital item. We also show how the method proposed is compliant with the major initiatives for the documentation of cultural heritage, namely CIDOC-CRM and FRBR. Finally, we test the applicability of our solution by showing how the major tenets of two well-known theories of drama can be encoded in Drammar and presenting the results of a focus group of drama scholars and practitioners who have accessed the encoding through a visualization system. The encoding and visualization system have turned out to be a promising support for teaching and investigating drama.
This paper presents a multimedia tool suite for, on the one hand, the annotation of metadata that... more This paper presents a multimedia tool suite for, on the one hand, the annotation of metadata that encode the dramatic qualities of cultural heritage items, and, on the other, the visualization of such metadata for drama analysis and didactics. The tool suite relies upon an ontology of drama to devise an annotation schema for the metadata concerning the dramatic qualities. The two major modules of the tool suite are a web-based platform, that allows for the insertion of the annotation metadata, and a visualization program for the interactive exploration of such metadata, respectively. The tool suite was tested on the cross-media studies of drama analysis and teaching of drama structure through the application to classical examples.
The Queer Epic of Angels in America
(Antonio Pizzo)
The paper analyses the worldwide know Kushn... more The Queer Epic of Angels in America
(Antonio Pizzo)
The paper analyses the worldwide know Kushner’s masterpiece through the lens of a queer aesthetic. The play has been largely discussed in literature according the numbers of themes it contains. The article aims to show how those themes are part of LGBT culture and politics. Moreover, the article’s final goal is to verify how the basic elements of dramatic writing are handled by the author within a queer perspec- tive. In the paly, the traditional features of the drama, such as, action, characters, conflict, are twisted and rendered in a specific way in order to quote (or to promote) a queer approach to writing. At the end, this can be read as the Kushner’s personal interpretation of political theatre, via a sort of queer epic theatre.
A short comment on the Benedetto Sicca's production of Britten's The Turn of the Screw at Maggio ... more A short comment on the Benedetto Sicca's production of Britten's The Turn of the Screw at Maggio Fiorentino Opera Festival in 2015.
The notions of digital virtuality and theatre, because are so close, if come close to each other,... more The notions of digital virtuality and theatre, because are so close, if come close to each other, multiply their denotative power, producing such a mass of meaning to implode and create a sort of ‘meaning black hole’, where anything is adsorbed and disintegrated. We discuss of simulation and representation without a break; we point at aesthetic values using sociological categories; we act like artists and talk as engineers. Of course, confusion is often a ground to build new ideas. Nevertheless, while artists make their confusion, I think scholars would be better to making some sense.
Il volume propone una ricognizione sul tema della drammaturgia alla luce dell'evoluzione dei ling... more Il volume propone una ricognizione sul tema della drammaturgia alla luce dell'evoluzione dei linguaggi informatici e delle tecnologie digitali negli ultimi tre decenni. In particolare, il saggio analizza alcune nozioni chiave della scrittura drammatica e guida il lettore in un percorso tra la scrittura scenica multimediale e la drammaturgia delle procedure algoritmiche. La drammaturgia, intesa come arte di progettare e scrivere lo spettacolo, non è immune dai cambiamenti causati nel mondo della comunicazione dall'affermazione dei nuovi media digitali e interattivi. Il saggio individua i punti fondamentali di questa contaminazione, accompagnando gli elementi teorici con moltissimi esempi pratici.
The interview has been recorded in three days in Barcelona, during the rehearsals of Pseudo, the ... more The interview has been recorded in three days in Barcelona, during the rehearsals of Pseudo, the last performance of Marcel•lí Antúnez Roca. Starting from the creative process he has followed to produce the show, the conversation aims to describe a larger picture of the methodology of the Catalan artist and focuses on his idea of interactive narrative. It starts from the use of projection screens intended as a space for his grotesque cartoon characters to live, and describes the ongoing – almost all along his career – effort to invent a new space for the whole performance. Moreover, the artist defines his idea of Sistematurgy, a neologism he created from the fusion of Systems of computers and digital devices, and Dramaturgy as narrative organizing principle of the performance. This is the heart of the interview and interweaves problems regarding the theory and praxis of interactivity and the role of the audience in contemporary performance. It emerges that Marcel•lí Antúnez Roca, albeit coming from a fine art background, and although growth within the Fura del Baus, in the last decades has been more and more dedicated to the multimedia dramaturgy of the digital performance, trying to hybridize the event-like nature of his interactive performance, with the delivery of a clear sense and meaning of the storyteller.
Characters in movies and video games are created (in whole or in part) with the help of motion ca... more Characters in movies and video games are created (in whole or in part) with the help of motion capture. The essay describes the characteristics of this technology and aims to verify whether and how motion capture has influenced the actor's work. Using heterogeneous sources (websites, online magazines, newspapers and essays) the essay lists the most influential opinions and the most relevant issues within the debate about acting and digital technologies in pre- and post-production. Starting from few considerations on how the digital manipulation has heavily intervened on the final outcome of the actor's work, and taking into account the proliferation of entertainment in which the characters are a mix of live action and digital animation, the essay concludes with certain practical and theoretical considerations on how we might re-consider the actor’s tasks in these new production contexts. The paper is accompanied by an overview of the technologies used, and by a series of selected videos from the web. The essay features also an interview with John Dower, a director who has worked for the motion capture and video games and is co-founder of The Vault Mocap in UK
Storytelling, especially in the form called drama, is pervasive across cultures and ages. Though ... more Storytelling, especially in the form called drama, is pervasive across cultures and ages. Though much attention has been devoted to the preservation of the physical supports of drama (e.g., films and tapes), there is a widespread acknowledgment that such tangible heritage is the expression of an intangible notion of drama. This article introduces drama as a form of intangible cultural heritage and presents a solution for its preservation in terms of a formal encoding through a computational ontology.
After the review of a formal representation of drama, called Drammar, developed in previous works, we show how an abstraction of drama can be encoded into a digital item. We also show how the method proposed is compliant with the major initiatives for the documentation of cultural heritage, namely CIDOC-CRM and FRBR. Finally, we test the applicability of our solution by showing how the major tenets of two well-known theories of drama can be encoded in Drammar and presenting the results of a focus group of drama scholars and practitioners who have accessed the encoding through a visualization system. The encoding and visualization system have turned out to be a promising support for teaching and investigating drama.
This paper presents a multimedia tool suite for, on the one hand, the annotation of metadata that... more This paper presents a multimedia tool suite for, on the one hand, the annotation of metadata that encode the dramatic qualities of cultural heritage items, and, on the other, the visualization of such metadata for drama analysis and didactics. The tool suite relies upon an ontology of drama to devise an annotation schema for the metadata concerning the dramatic qualities. The two major modules of the tool suite are a web-based platform, that allows for the insertion of the annotation metadata, and a visualization program for the interactive exploration of such metadata, respectively. The tool suite was tested on the cross-media studies of drama analysis and teaching of drama structure through the application to classical examples.
The Queer Epic of Angels in America
(Antonio Pizzo)
The paper analyses the worldwide know Kushn... more The Queer Epic of Angels in America
(Antonio Pizzo)
The paper analyses the worldwide know Kushner’s masterpiece through the lens of a queer aesthetic. The play has been largely discussed in literature according the numbers of themes it contains. The article aims to show how those themes are part of LGBT culture and politics. Moreover, the article’s final goal is to verify how the basic elements of dramatic writing are handled by the author within a queer perspec- tive. In the paly, the traditional features of the drama, such as, action, characters, conflict, are twisted and rendered in a specific way in order to quote (or to promote) a queer approach to writing. At the end, this can be read as the Kushner’s personal interpretation of political theatre, via a sort of queer epic theatre.
A short comment on the Benedetto Sicca's production of Britten's The Turn of the Screw at Maggio ... more A short comment on the Benedetto Sicca's production of Britten's The Turn of the Screw at Maggio Fiorentino Opera Festival in 2015.
The notions of digital virtuality and theatre, because are so close, if come close to each other,... more The notions of digital virtuality and theatre, because are so close, if come close to each other, multiply their denotative power, producing such a mass of meaning to implode and create a sort of ‘meaning black hole’, where anything is adsorbed and disintegrated. We discuss of simulation and representation without a break; we point at aesthetic values using sociological categories; we act like artists and talk as engineers. Of course, confusion is often a ground to build new ideas. Nevertheless, while artists make their confusion, I think scholars would be better to making some sense.
Il volume propone una ricognizione sul tema della drammaturgia alla luce dell'evoluzione dei ling... more Il volume propone una ricognizione sul tema della drammaturgia alla luce dell'evoluzione dei linguaggi informatici e delle tecnologie digitali negli ultimi tre decenni. In particolare, il saggio analizza alcune nozioni chiave della scrittura drammatica e guida il lettore in un percorso tra la scrittura scenica multimediale e la drammaturgia delle procedure algoritmiche. La drammaturgia, intesa come arte di progettare e scrivere lo spettacolo, non è immune dai cambiamenti causati nel mondo della comunicazione dall'affermazione dei nuovi media digitali e interattivi. Il saggio individua i punti fondamentali di questa contaminazione, accompagnando gli elementi teorici con moltissimi esempi pratici.
The interview has been recorded in three days in Barcelona, during the rehearsals of Pseudo, the ... more The interview has been recorded in three days in Barcelona, during the rehearsals of Pseudo, the last performance of Marcel•lí Antúnez Roca. Starting from the creative process he has followed to produce the show, the conversation aims to describe a larger picture of the methodology of the Catalan artist and focuses on his idea of interactive narrative. It starts from the use of projection screens intended as a space for his grotesque cartoon characters to live, and describes the ongoing – almost all along his career – effort to invent a new space for the whole performance. Moreover, the artist defines his idea of Sistematurgy, a neologism he created from the fusion of Systems of computers and digital devices, and Dramaturgy as narrative organizing principle of the performance. This is the heart of the interview and interweaves problems regarding the theory and praxis of interactivity and the role of the audience in contemporary performance. It emerges that Marcel•lí Antúnez Roca, albeit coming from a fine art background, and although growth within the Fura del Baus, in the last decades has been more and more dedicated to the multimedia dramaturgy of the digital performance, trying to hybridize the event-like nature of his interactive performance, with the delivery of a clear sense and meaning of the storyteller.
Maria Knebel is one of the most influential scholars in the field of Drama Analysis. Her work wit... more Maria Knebel is one of the most influential scholars in the field of Drama Analysis. Her work with Stanislavsky has been foundational in the history of theatre: she devised the method of Action Analysis to read the play as a score of actions to be executed by the actors. This paper aims at encoding Knebel's principles in a formal representation using a computational ontology (Drammar) to prove its expressiveness and to test its efficacy in a production point of view. As an example we use Knebel's analysis of Pogodin's "Kremlin Chimes".
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Papers by antonio pizzo
proliferation of entertainment in which the characters are a mix of live action and digital animation, the essay concludes with certain practical and theoretical considerations on how we might re-consider the actor’s tasks in these new production contexts. The paper is accompanied by an overview of the technologies used, and by a series of selected videos from the web. The essay features also an interview with John Dower, a director who has worked for the motion capture and video games and is co-founder of The Vault Mocap in UK
After the review of a formal representation of drama, called Drammar, developed in previous works, we show how an abstraction of drama can be encoded into a digital item. We also show how the method proposed is compliant with the major initiatives for the documentation of cultural heritage, namely CIDOC-CRM and FRBR. Finally, we test the applicability of our solution by showing how the major tenets of two well-known theories of drama can be encoded in Drammar and presenting the results of a focus group of drama scholars and practitioners who have accessed the encoding through a visualization system. The encoding and visualization system have turned out to be a promising support for teaching and investigating drama.
(Antonio Pizzo)
The paper analyses the worldwide know Kushner’s masterpiece through the lens of a queer aesthetic. The play has been largely discussed in literature according the numbers of themes it contains. The article aims to show how those themes are part of LGBT culture and politics. Moreover, the article’s final goal is to verify how the basic elements of dramatic writing are handled by the author within a queer perspec- tive. In the paly, the traditional features of the drama, such as, action, characters, conflict, are twisted and rendered in a specific way in order to quote (or to promote) a queer approach to writing. At the end, this can be read as the Kushner’s personal interpretation of political theatre, via a sort of queer epic theatre.
proliferation of entertainment in which the characters are a mix of live action and digital animation, the essay concludes with certain practical and theoretical considerations on how we might re-consider the actor’s tasks in these new production contexts. The paper is accompanied by an overview of the technologies used, and by a series of selected videos from the web. The essay features also an interview with John Dower, a director who has worked for the motion capture and video games and is co-founder of The Vault Mocap in UK
After the review of a formal representation of drama, called Drammar, developed in previous works, we show how an abstraction of drama can be encoded into a digital item. We also show how the method proposed is compliant with the major initiatives for the documentation of cultural heritage, namely CIDOC-CRM and FRBR. Finally, we test the applicability of our solution by showing how the major tenets of two well-known theories of drama can be encoded in Drammar and presenting the results of a focus group of drama scholars and practitioners who have accessed the encoding through a visualization system. The encoding and visualization system have turned out to be a promising support for teaching and investigating drama.
(Antonio Pizzo)
The paper analyses the worldwide know Kushner’s masterpiece through the lens of a queer aesthetic. The play has been largely discussed in literature according the numbers of themes it contains. The article aims to show how those themes are part of LGBT culture and politics. Moreover, the article’s final goal is to verify how the basic elements of dramatic writing are handled by the author within a queer perspec- tive. In the paly, the traditional features of the drama, such as, action, characters, conflict, are twisted and rendered in a specific way in order to quote (or to promote) a queer approach to writing. At the end, this can be read as the Kushner’s personal interpretation of political theatre, via a sort of queer epic theatre.