Through creative art making practice, research seeks to contribute a body of knowledge to an under researched area by examining how key concepts germane to computer based, interactive, three-dimensional, virtual environment artworks might be explicated, potential compositional issues characterised, and possible production strategies identified and/or proposed. Initial research summarises a range of classifications pertaining to the function of interactivity within virtual space, leading to an identification and analysis of a predominant model for composing virtual environment media, characterised as the "world as model": a methodological approach to devising interactive and spatial contexts employing visual and behavioural modes based on the physical world. Following this alternative forms of environmental organisation are examined through the development of a series of artworks beginning with Bodies and Bethlem, and culminating with Reconnoitre: a networked environment, spatially manifest through performative user input. Theoretical corollaries to the project are identified placing it within a wider critical context concerned with distinguishing between the virtual as a condition of simulation: a representation of something pre-existing, and the virtual as potential structure: a phenomena in itself requiring creative actualisation and orientated toward change. This distinction is further developed through an analysis of some existing typologies of interactive computer based art, and used to generalise two base conditions between which various possibilities for practice might be situated: the "fluid" and "formatted" virtual.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Washington State University, May 2009. / Title from title screen (viewed on Nov. 23, 2009). "Department of Fine Arts."

The musical submission for this dissertation is a twenty-minute opera in virtual reality, "Out of the Ordinary/As an nGnách," which was commissioned and produced by Irish National Opera and co-produced by Virtual Reality Ireland. It was developed over two years through a co-creation process with three communities. The music was set to a libretto in English and Irish by Jody O’Neill, and the opera was directed by Jo Mangan. The animated virtual reality world was designed and developed by Algorithm, a creative production company. "Out of the Ordinary/As an nGnách," is one of three trials as part of Traction, an EU-funded research project. The opera is scored for two professional opera singers, professional and non-professional instrumentalists and a community choir. This written submission for my dissertation examines how the community co-creation and the virtual reality technology influenced the final work. I highlight how material and themes from the community workshops informed the narrative and libretto, and I analyze the ways in which the co-creation process and the non-professional artists from the communities are incorporated into the music. I discuss the process of composing for the virtual reality medium and finally, I reflect on where I believe improvements within the process could have been made, and the overall accomplishments of the project.

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This research aims to delineate various modes and means of communication in the field of multimedia theatre and to relate this field of practice to contemporary debates in both theatre and media studies. This thesis defines 'multimedia theatre' in two ways: firstly to include performance where media technologies are brought into the theatrical frame as a feature of the mise en scene, and secondly to refer to the area of new media performance, where a live performer may not be present but a high degree of performativity and liveness are achieved. Discourse in the field of digital aesthetics and new media theory is applied to examples and case studies of contemporary multimedia theatre practice to highlight the formal structures and modes of audience engagement operating within such work. Multimedia theatre may be characterised by the qualities of intermediality, immersion, interactivity, and postnarratvity, and these characteristics are used in this thesis as focal points to structure analysis and investigation. The thesis also argues that recent developments in the field of multimedia theatre and performance may be viewed as related to a larger cultural shift predicated on the dissolution of the separation of the real and the virtual. It is further argued that multimedia theatre is acting as a forum for the exploration of the contemporary human experience, an experience shaped by the ubiquity of digital media and the development of a 'posthuman' perspective.

This research aims to delineate various modes and means of communication in the field of multimedia theatre and to relate this field of practice to contemporary debates in both theatre and media studies. This thesis defines 'multimedia theatre' in two ways: firstly to include performance where media technologies are brought into the theatrical frame as a feature of the mise en scene, and secondly to refer to the area of new media performance, where a live performer may not be present but a high degree of performativity and liveness are achieved. Discourse in the field of digital aesthetics and new media theory is applied to examples and case studies of contemporary multimedia theatre practice to highlight the formal structures and modes of audience engagement operating within such work. Multimedia theatre may be characterised by the qualities of intermediality, immersion, interactivity, and postnarratvity, and these characteristics are used in this thesis as focal points to structure analysis and investigation. The thesis also argues that recent developments in the field of multimedia theatre and performance may be viewed as related to a larger cultural shift predicated on the dissolution of the separation of the real and the virtual. It is further argued that multimedia theatre is acting as a forum for the exploration of the contemporary human experience, an experience shaped by the ubiquity of digital media and the development of a 'posthuman' perspective.

In the worlds of virtual reality, whole objects and bodies are created in an immaterial manner from lines, ratios and light pixels. When objects are created in this form they can easily be manipulated, edited, multiplied and deleted. In addition, technological advances in virtual reality development result in an increased merging of physical and virtual elements, creating spaces of mixed reality. This leads to interesting consequences where the physical environment and body, in a similar vein to the virtual, also becomes increasingly easier to manipulate, distort and change. Mixed realities thus enhance possibilities of a world of constantly changing landscapes and adjustable, interchangeable bodies. The notions of virtual and real coincide within this thesis, reflecting on a new version of reality that is overlapped and ever-present in its mixing of virtual and physical. These concepts are explored within my exhibition Immaterial - a creation of simulated nature encompassing a mix of natural and artificial, tangible and intangible. Within the exhibition space, I have created a scene of mixed reality, by merging elements of both a virtual and physical forest. This generates a magical space of new experiences that comes to life through the manipulated, edited, morphed and re-awakened bodies of trees.

The starting point of my dissertation is the question: What would be needed of a device to culturally reconfigure the way that we see? The question has been addressed through a theoretical examination of spatial theories in modern times and a creative exploration of new spatialities in new media technologies, both visual and aural. Central to my thesis are three claims: 1. the paradigmatic mathematical theory of single-point perspective is fundamental to the imagining and construction of space in modern times; 2. perspective is a seductive space because its virtualisations seem more authentic than phenomenological experience; 3. the structure of perspective space prefigures the computer screen, hence any attempt to reconfigure the spatial imaginary through the devices of new media technologies must first confront the historical ubiquity of perspective. The specific focus of my written research is a comparative study of Filippo Brunelleschi's perspective device and the virtual reality work of Char Davies. This comparative study focuses on the ingredients of both devices as well as the similarities between the environments in which they were demonstrated. Brunelleschi's Peephole device, according to his biographer Manetti, first demonstrated perspective theory in the early fifteenth century. Brunelleschi's device, with its three main components, the mirror, the burnished silver and the painted panel, are examined in regards to the environment it was demonstrated in. The dissertation explores these elements as the essential conceptual ingredients for the reconfiguration of space in modern times. Aspects of Brunelleschi's device are also examined creatively in my practical work. Today emergent technologies are being used to explore the potential of a new spatial world order. However, these new technologies are generally based on an Old World order perspective. Even the cubist reconfiguration of space did not change, in any fundamental way, the dominant perspectival model of perception because it did not have the same ideological and psychological power as perspective, which seduced the viewer into believing that the gap (or loss) between the technology and reality had been compensated. Arguably, the same claims can be made for virtual reality devices. Hence, important to the dissertation is a comparative study of Brunelleschi's perspective device and the virtual reality work of Char Davies. The creative work investigates the effects and work of perspectival spatiality by examining (through digital video, photographically and sonically) residual spaces in the environment. To me these residual spaces provide potential resistances to the perspectival space from which they evolved, and thus show new ways of exploring the virtual reality of cyberspace that, while acknowledging the pervasive presence of perspective systems, also deconstruct or even map new post-perspective spatialities.

Virtual Stage is a project to use Virtual Reality (VR) technology as an audiovisual performance interface. The depth of control, modularity of design, and user immersion aim to solve some of the representational problems in interactive audiovisual art and the control problems in digital musical instruments. Creating feedback between interaction and perception, the VR environment references the viewer's behavioral intuition developed in the real world, facilitating clarity in the understanding of artistic representation. The critical essay discusses of interactive behavior, game mechanics, interface implementations, and technical developments to express the structures and performance possibilities. This discussion uses Virtual Stage as an example with specific aesthetic and technical solutions, but addresses archetypal concerns in interactive audiovisual art. The creative documentation lists the interactive functions present in Virtual Stage as well as code reproductions of selected technical solutions. The included code excerpts document novel approaches to virtual reality implementation and acoustic physical modeling of musical instruments.