There’s a virtual elephant in the room

Peter Brook once said - “a true theater designer will think of his designs as being all the time in motion, in action, in relation to what the actor brings to a scene as it unfolds…unlike the easel painter, in two dimensions, or the sculptor in three, the designer thinks in terms of the fourth dimension, the passage of time—not the stage picture, but the stage moving picture”.

While Brook wrote this text about stage arts, today, it finds its relevance for emerging forms of design such as extended reality (XR - AR/VR/MR).

XR, a hybrid child of both UX/UI for flat screens, and that of physical 3D interfaces such as printers and keyboards, is a new creature - one which is partly staged as it brings people into 3D spaces to go through story-driven narrative experiences. Partly an exhibition site or an architectural space as it curates content and leads the body and sight in various directions. Partly dance, as it directs our physical body to move in certain ways. To design interactions for such hybrid spatial experiences, a mix of traditional and new tools, techniques and practitioners must be joined. Using a set of case studies from real life projects I lead recently - this presentation will set the stage for what’s to come, offering hands-on techniques and methodological approaches.

‍