The next meeting of the London Virtual Reality Group has now been
confirmed.

Date: Thursday 16th March 2000
Time: 6.30-9.30pm
Place:  The Virtual Reality Centre for the Built Environment,
 1-19 Torrington Place, London WC1 just off Tottenham Court Road

It is the final in the four part series we have been running over the
last year entitled "Refocusing Virtual Reality".

This meeting will be concerned with  "Narrative and Dramatic use of VR",
and is being organised and chaired by Sharon Springel of the Centre for
Communication Systems Research at Cambridge University.

There are now a number of research programmes investigating the tempting
possibilities suggested by the combination of VR, Drama and the creative
ability of the individual user. Inspired by the computer games industry
and  the internet itself, more and more are turning to the idea of a
new   Immersive Entertainment format. But how easy is it to disregard
the concept of the pre-determined media  experience and will the next
generation of media makers ever be comfortable  with the idea of
releasing even some of the creative control to the  audience itself?.

 Is this in fact the very key to the new immersive media experience?

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We are lucky to have three excellent speakers to explore these issues:

1. Mark Reaney.
"Theatre Expressionism and VR"

 Director of the Institute for the Exploration of Virtual Realities in
the Dept of Theatre and Film at the University of Kansas. Since 1994
they have produced four major theatre works and several laboratory
productions in which VR has been a primary scenic medium. Mark is
currently a Leverhulme fellow at the University of Kent, where a new
VR/Theatre production of ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’ will be performed in
June

2. Ivor Benjamin.
"It’s Improvisation, Jim, but not as we know it"

Freelance theatre director, writer and teacher of 15 years. He is
currently undertaking a PhD at the centre for Human-Computer Interaction
Design, City University, London, where he is investigating the
application of theatre, improvisation and drama theory for the design of
interactive environments. Current production is called "Cast of 2000", a
Millenium community play for the London Borough of Barnet.

3. Demis Hassabis
"Computer Worlds, and the dawning of a new ‘Republic’"

Demis is CEO of Elixir Studios. At the age of 17 he co-created the best
selling game ‘Theme Park’ with Peter Moyneux. After time at Lionhead,
where he was the senior programmer on Black and White. He left there in
February 1998 to set up his new company, Elixir Studios, where he has
set out to design games in  non-violent genres that he hopes will
attract a wider audience than the games industry's natural teenage boy
market and also creatively further what games are capable of.


Our guest chairperson, Sharon Springel, has been an Industrial Research
Fellow at Cambridge University's Centre for Communications Systems
Research,  (CCSR),  since  February 1998.  Prior to this, she was head
of programme development at British National Film and Television School,
and a founding member of CREATEC, the national centre of excellence for
digital media development.

There will, of course, be the usual opportunities for wine and
conversation before, in the middle, and at the end of the talks. We
thank VR News for their sponsorship of this series.

IMPORTANT: All are welcome, but we request that all intending to attend
join the LVRG at our website (http://www.lvrg.org.uk), so that we have a
list of possible attendees for the security guys at the door.

If there are any queries, please contact me at [log in to unmask]

Avon Huxor
Secretary LVRG






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