Devising Interactive Spaces: A Rehearsal-Oriented Tool for Creating Responsive Environments for Immersive Theatre

2026-07-07

AI Summary

This work addresses the lack of tools supporting non-technical performers in rapidly prototyping responsive environments during early-stage immersive theater creation. To bridge this gap, the authors propose a rehearsal-oriented, no-code visual system that directly maps sensor inputs—such as gesture, position, and voice—to lighting and sound outputs, enabling creators to configure, test, and iterate interactive spaces in real time during workshops. By abstracting sensing and actuation mechanisms into manipulable “compositional materials,” the system emphasizes visible mappings and low technical barriers, fostering integration between embodied practice and interactive technology. Evaluated across six professional workshops, eight performer-creators successfully employed the system to develop audiovisual scores, trigger-based scenes, responsive architectural prototypes, and multi-room improvisational performances, demonstrating its effectiveness and usability in early creative exploration.

Abstract

We present a rehearsal-oriented system for creating responsive built environments during theatre devising workshops. The system connects bespoke sensing modules for gesture, position, and speech recognition to light and sound outputs through a visual no-code programming layer. It was developed, used, and refined across six workshops with eight professional performance-makers, where participants created light-and-sound scores, gesture- and position-triggered scenes, responsive architectures, participatory prototypes, and a multi-room scratch performance. Rather than presenting a production-ready show-control platform, this demo focuses on how sensing and actuation can be made available as compositional materials during early-stage creative experimentation for immersive theatrical compositions. The system is designed to support quick configuration, visible mappings, and in-room testing, allowing performers to experiment with responsive spaces with minimal technical support. We describe the system architecture, its workshop use, and the practical conditions that helped integrate interactive sensing into embodied performance-making.

Problem

• immersive theatre
• responsive environments
• devising workshops
• interactive sensing
• creative experimentation

Innovation

• no-code programming
• responsive environments
• sensing and actuation
• immersive theatre
• embodied interaction