Egyptian Ceremony in the Virtual Temple- Avatars for Virtual Heritage

FAIN: HD-51209-10

PublicVR (Jamaica Plain, MA 02130-2231)
Jeffrey Jacobson (Project Director: March 2010 to February 2012)

Development of new virtual reality technology for an exhibition on ancient Egypt at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

With Virtual Reality, students can directly interact with distant times and places, giving them greater understanding and empathy for other cultures. Egyptian religious performance and ritual were central to the culture, and monumental temples were their dramatic performance spaces. The Earth Theater at Carnegie Museum of Natural History supports the Virtual Egyptian Temple, a three-dimensional, computer-graphic simulation of a Ptolemaic Era temple. We propose to stage an important religious event from that time, the Egyptian Oracle, virtually “in” the temple at the Earth Theater and two other large-screen theaters. An expert puppeteer will control the temple virtual High Priest and lesser constructs, a live educator, and even with the audience in the role of the Egyptian public. A live puppeteer can experiment and improvise in ways no artificial intelligence can and decades of educational research show the best way to learn about a social activity is to see it and do it.

Associated Products

The Egyptian Oracle (May 20th at Puppet Showplace Theater) (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)
Title: The Egyptian Oracle (May 20th at Puppet Showplace Theater)
Writer: Brad Shur, Kerry Handron, Jeffrey Jacobson, Brenda Huggins, Friedrich Kirshner
Producer: Jeffrey Jacobson
Abstract: The Egyptian Oracle performance is a live reenactment of an authentic public ceremony from ancient Egypt’s Late Period. We project our Virtual Egyptian Temple on the wall at life scale extending the physical theater into virtual space. The temple is not a film, not a static image, but a true three-dimensional space, which the audience navigates during scene changes. The central actor is a high priest, an avatar controlled by a live human puppeteer, hidden offstage. The supporting actress stands in front of the screen, in costume, mediating the experience. Audience members represent the Egyptian populace acting out brief roles in the drama. Finally, the sacred boat (left) is another puppet also controlled by the puppeteer. In the drama, the will of the temple god moves the boat. This production is a prototype funded by a Digital Startup Grant from the NEH (HD-5120910). We are not seeking support for a full implementation.
Year: 2011
Primary URL: http://vimeo.com/30709511
Access Model: Open access
Format: Digital File
Format: Web

Sound Spatialization For the Egyptian Oracle (Article)
Title: Sound Spatialization For the Egyptian Oracle
Author: Ajayan Nambiar
Abstract: The Oracle performance takes place partially in real space, and partially in virtual space. (see “Preamble”, above.) The task is to overlay a soundscape onto a physical space to match the projected visual. More precisely, we wish to create a unified aural space that extends from the physical through the virtual to encompass the entire performance. The aural contributions come in the form of the ambience, puppeteer, actor and the audience. The ambient music and effects would serve as the base on which the additional sounds would be placed to enhance realism. The additional sounds would be a mix of the sound of the puppeteer, actor and the audience all channeled through separate microphones. The fidelity of the sonic space would further need to be enhanced with the addition of specialized sound effects such as echo, reverb, etc to make the space more believable to the audience. The inclusion of different reverbs for different spaces would be the first major addition and also the most psychologically impactful. The changes in reverb would immediately allow the audience to discern the transition from a big space to a small one or from an open space to a closed one. Integration of sound with space would not be the only task at hand. Sound must also gel with the performance and hit cues with the actors to provide a sense of realism. Automation of sound is a core goal of this project. However, in a real time project with live actors, automation of sound has certain limitations, which is why an operator to regulate live sounds was deemed necessary. Further efforts would be put in to automate these tasks in future to make the system more self-reliant.
Year: 2011
Primary URL: http://publicvr.org/IndexDownloads/NambiarA2011.pdf
Format: Other
Periodical Title: (Master's Thesis)
Publisher: Northeastern Unversity

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