Double Trouble. Digital Avatars on Stage

Digitalization has significantly accelerated the crossover of cinema and game aesthetics and their associated technical processes with the performing arts. Embedded in digitally shaped worlds, virtual characters have began to perform on the stage. The film industry's performance-capture technology transfers human body movements to animated characters and the fast chips developed for gaming enable real-time computation. The particularities of virtual characters in film, computer games and performing arts as well as the growing interdependency of these fields are outlined. The double appearance of actors and their avatars on stage is discussed in the context of an artistic research project.