eRENA - Electronic Arenas for Cluture, Performance, Art and Entertainment
The eRENA project is focused on inhabited information spaces to support new forms of cultural experience spanning arts, performance and entertainment. We refer to these kinds of spaces as electronic arenas. In eRENA long term research is involved into a range of "spatial technologies", especially multi-user virtual environments, coupled to new forms of artistic content and an understanding of social interaction.
The eRENA project supports new forms of cultural activity spanning the arts, performance and entertainment. Specialists in virtual reality, computer animation, social science and broadcasting have linked up with artists to research spatial technologies and novel artistic content. The consortium will develop mixed and large-scale electronic spaces in which participants - audience members, artists and performers - in large numbers can explore, interact and communicate in shared events.
This is Nottingham's home page for the eRENA project. The main home page is at http://www.nada.kth.se/erena/.
The eRENA project is focused on inhabited information spaces to support new forms of cultural experience spanning arts, performance and entertainment. We refer to these kinds of spaces as electronic arenas. In eRENA long term research is involved into a range of "spatial technologies", especially multi-user virtual environments, coupled to new forms of artistic content and an understanding of social interaction. Characteristics and goals of the eRENA project include the following.
The project is structured around underlying research challenges, which involve three topics:
The eRENA project will publicly demonstrate and evaluate the results of these research challenges through thematic spaces which provide specific examples of electronic arenas. Initially, these thematic spaces will be based on the extension of the traditional cultural forms of galleries, performances and television. In the longer term, however, we will explore entirely new cultural forms appropriate to this new medium of expression. The research challenges and thematic spaces are brought together in a detailed three year workplan.
The outcomes of eRENA will include: new techniques for individual and mass participation in producing and shaping the content of virtual arenas; new ways of structuring electronic arenas so as to afford different modes of interaction, navigation and communication in different virtual spaces or at different stages of an event; powerful new techniques for embodying humans and agents in electronic arenas; mechanisms to support dynamic crowd aggregations, including crowd representations and mechanisms for managing crowd membership; new ways for groups and individuals to interact with shared and projected displays; technical support for building structured mixed realities out of boundaries between real and virtual space; and finally, the demonstration of these techniques through a series of public exhibitions and performances which are complemented by networked experiments.
The eRENA consortium brings together internationally known digital artists from ZKM and GMD; experts in multi-user virtual reality and computer animation from EPFL, Geneva, Nottingham, KTH and GMD; social scientists from Nottingham and KTH; broadcasters from Illuminations and KTH; expertise in CAVEs and other projected interfaces from GMD and BT; and networking expertise from BT.
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