Collaborative Mixed Reality Environments (CMREs) enable designing Performative Mixed Reality Experiences (PMREs) to engage participants’ physical bodies, mixed reality environments, and technologies utilized. However, the physical body is rarely purposefully incorporated throughout such design processes, leaving designers seated behind their desks, relying on their previous know-how and assumptions. In contrast, embodied design techniques from HCI and performing arts afford direct corporeal feedback to verify and adapt experiential aesthetics within the design process. This paper proposes a performative prototyping method, which combines bodystorming methods with Wizard of Oz techniques with a puppeteering approach, using inside-out somaesthetic- and outside-in dramaturgical perspectives. In addition, it suggests an interdisciplinary vocabulary to share and evaluate PMRE experiences during and after its design collaboration. This method is exemplified and investigated by comparing two case studies of PMRE design projects in higher-art education using the existing Social VR platform NEOS VR adapted as a CMRE.
Created for the 2019 Prague Quadrennial’s 36Q°, Blue Hour VR was a site-responsive mixed reality performative installation that placed the spectator, as experiencer, within a hybrid landscape of real- time three-dimensional computer graphics and 360-degree video. This article describes the design process, staging and experience of Blue Hour VR from the vantage point of its creators. Using a phenomenological perspective, the article discusses how Blue Hour VR staged presence and embodiment within an intermedial haptic experience. Blue Hour VR demonstrates how virtual reality technology can be harnessed by a mixed reality performance design, which includes both the material and virtual environment, creating a complex stratigraphy of intermedial textures and visual dramaturgies that co-exist inside, outside and in between perceptual realities. In doing so, the article aims to contribute to the limited body of work on mixed and virtual reality in the context of theatre and performance design.
Picture books with characters that promote healthy eating are increasingly being used to make this behavior more attractive. The first aim of this study was to investigate whether the effect of vegetable promoting picture books on toddlers' vegetable consumption differed according to the reading style and the use of a hand puppet during reading. The second aim was to investigate whether these effects were mediated by toddlers’ narrative involvement and character imitation. In a 2 (reading style: interactive vs. passive) x 2 (puppet use: with vs. without puppet) between-subjects design, 163 toddlers (2e3 years) were randomly assigned to one of the four reading conditions. The story was about a rabbit that loves to eat carrots. After the fourth reading day, the eating task was conducted in which children could eat freely from four different snacks, including carrots. The main finding was that interactive reading produced the greatest carrot consumption. The explanation for this effect was that interactive reading stimulated toddlers to imitate poses of the book characters, even more when interactive reading was supported by the use of a hand puppet. The findings underline that young children should be actively involved with health interventions in order for them to be effective.
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