BMO LAB

Creative Lab for the Arts, Performance, Emerging Technologies and AI

Courses

Students discuss a performance with faculty members David Rokeby and Karan Singh during rehearsals for one of the end of term performances in “Theatre and Emerging Technologies”

Fall 2019 (Graduate Level)
DRA 3907HF: Theatre and Emerging Technologies
CSC 2524: Topics in Interactive Computing

Taught in conjunction with the Department of Computer Science, this course explored applications of emerging technologies in the context of theatre, performance and installation. It was taught by David Rokeby (media artist and Director of the BMO LAB) and Professors Pia Kleber (Drama/Theatre/Comparative Literature) and Karan Singh (Computer Science). Students from Theatre and Performance, Music, Computer Science and Engineering participated. The course involved seminar presentations of readings from both the technical and artistic perspective, research papers, and participation in group productions. In these productions interdisciplinary groups of students worked together interpreting theatrical scenes using technologies such as Virtual Reality, depth cameras, projection and multi-channel sound.

Ariel (Coleen MacPherson) engages the audience in interactively creating the sounds of the island as Prospero (Trevor Jablonowski) sleeps. Selections from The Tempest, class production for the graduate course “Collisions and Common Ground”.

Fall 2018 – Spring 2019 (Graduate Level)
DRA 3907F Collisions and Common Ground – art, technology, performance

This interdisciplinary course explored the collision between the arts and technologies with all of its creative potential, unintentional collateral damage, compelling attraction, and complex social implications. Students hailed from Theatre, Information Science, Music, and Computer Science. The course involved seminar presentations of readings from both the technical and artistic perspective, research papers, and group productions at the end of each term. The students developed, realized and performed scenes adapted from Shakespeare’s Tempest, integrating a variety of interactive technologies.

Augusto Bitter rehearses his role as Ariel creating the island in Virtual Reality. Selections from The Tempest, class production for the graduate course “Collisions and Common Ground”.