This research report examines the role of the projected image in the creation of meaning in theatre-based live performance, through the interaction and integration of the projection, the live performer and the staged environment, termed as intermedia performance. The report is based on findings gleaned from my own creative practice and documents a process of practice-led research. It begins by establishing a historical context for this type of creative practice by tracing the development of intermedia performance in the twentieth century. It then takes five of my performance works as case studies, reflecting on the successes and shortcomings of each work in relationship to the stated goal of integrating the projected and live elements of each performance, with major emphasis placed on the analysis of my staged work Heaven and Hell :The Life of Aldous Huxley. In the analysis, a theoretical framework is introduced in the form of Steve Dixon’s digital double, Phaedra Bell’s Dialogic Media Productions and Inter-media Exchange, as well as Philip Auslander’s notion of liveness. The report concludes that the major shortcoming of Heaven and Hell was the tendency of the projected image to overwhelm the live performer both aesthetically and – through mostly temporal constraints – to stifle the potential of the live performance medium in providing a more inclusive and visceral experience for its audience than that offered by exclusively screen-based media. My findings focus on the need to make use of physical computing technologies such as motion sensors in intermedia performance in order to empower live performers and to create more scope for spontaneity and true interaction between the live and the projected.

jn4.gesture is an interactive multimedia composition for dancer and computer designed to extend the possibilities of artistic expression through the use of contemporary technology. The software produces the audiovisual materials, which are controlled by the movement of the dancer on a custom rug sensor. The software that produces the graphic and sonic material is created using a modular design. During run-time, the software's modules are directed by a scripting language developed to control and adjust the audiovisual production through time. The visual material provides the only illumination of the performer, and the projections follow the performer's movements. The human form is isolated in darkness and it remains the focal point in the visual environment. These same movements are used to create the sonic material and control the diffusion of sound in an eight channel sound system. The video recording of the performance was made on April 22, 2002. The work was produced in a specialized performance space using two computer projectors and a state of the art sound system. Arleen Sugano designed the costumes, choreographed and performed the composition in the Merrill Ellis Intermedia Theatre (MEIT) at the University of North Texas. The paper focuses on the design of the program that controls the production of the audiovisual environment. This is achieved with a discussion of background issues associated with gesture capture. A brief discussion of human-computer interface and its relationship with the arts provides an overview to the software design and mapping scenarios used to create the composition. The design of the score, a graphical user interface, is discussed as the element that synchronizes the media creation in "scenes" of the composition. This score delivers a hybrid script to the modules that controls the production of audiovisual elements. Particular modules are discussed and related to sensor mapping routines that give multiple mapping control to computer function enabling a single gesture o have multiple outcomes.