[ISEA2015] Paper: John Toenjes & M. Anthony Reimer – LAIT, The Laboratory for Audience Interactive Technologies: Don’t “Turn it Off” — “Turn it On!”

Abstract (Short paper)

Keywords: Mobile applications, theater, dance, music, installation, augmented reality, LAIT, smartphone, tablet computer, DSL, Unity

The Laboratory for Audience Interactive Technologies (LAIT), has been established at the University of Illinois UrbanaChampaign to investigate possibilities for mobile devices to enhance the dramatic and informational experience of audiences at theatrical events, including dance, theater, music concerts, sports events, and installation. LAIT has a two-fold mission to 1) create a new type of theatrical experience for the 21st century, 2) provide an experimental platform for industries to develop applications for entertainment and informational use. This paper describes a mobile development platform that will enable theatrical producers to rapidly prototype and produce deployable applications that run on services provided either by LAIT or by the end user, without the need to write a custom application for each production. This will provide a cost-effective application solution for individual theater, dance, music, and installation producers. LAIT also intends to provide guidance for aesthetic use of applications within the context of live performance, so that it can enhance or augment that experience, rather than distract or detract from it.

  • John Toenjes has a BA from Stanford University, USA, and an MA in Music Composition from the University of Missouri-Columbia, USA. He is Associate Professor and Music Director of the UIUC Department of Dance. His numerous interactive dances and movement-based installations include Inventions Suite (Cleveland Ingenuity Festival 2008), and e’s of water (UW-Milwaukee 2007). He wrote the music and designed the wireless sensor networks for Trisha Brown’s Astral Convertible Reimagined (UIUC 2010), and for FraMESHift (Teatro Astra, Turin, Italy 2011-12). He was Technical Director for IJPAN, the Illinois-Japan Performing Arts Network (2010-13), which produced his Timings: An Internet Dance, with dancers co-located internationally and connected to live avatars via Kinect. John is now Director of the Laboratory for Audience Interactive Technologies.  lait.ncsa.illinois.edu  jtoenjes.com
  • M. Anthony Reimer, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA. M. Anthony “Tony” Reimer’s passion is designing sound effects and writing music for theater, film, video games and interactive experiences; his compositions and sound designs have been heard
    in venues across the US and internationally. He has a BGS from Ball State University, an MM in Computer Music and New Media from Northern Illinois University and is pursuing a DMA in Music Composition at UIUC. Tony has been audio director/composer for Mutiny Games. He has designed and implemented interactive installations and data sonification projects at UIUC’s Krannert Art Museum and Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. Tony teaches sound design in the UIUC Department of Theater, and is a researcher at NCSA, working on projects involving the use of technology in art.

Full text (PDF)  p. 334-337