Mobile Urban Drama – Setting the Stage with Location Based Technologies

Abstract

Abstract. This paper introduces the novel concept of location-based Mobile Urban Dramas. In a Mobile Urban Drama the user become the main character in a play where actors' voices appear in the mobile phone headset linked to the physical setting in the city as the stage for the drama. The paper describes the dramaturgical concept and introduces a software framework supporting drama writers in developing such Mobile Urban Dramas. Experiences with use of the framework are discussed with successful examples of real dramas that have been developed and performed by a Danish theatre group, Katapult.

Mobile urban drama for multimedia-based out-of-school learning

“…The Mobile Urban Drama concept as well as the first three productions have previously been described in [18]. Since then, another three productions have been developed.…”

“…The software used in the HASLEINTERACTIVE drama is based on an implementation of the Mobile Urban Drama concept [18]. As discussed earlier, Mobile Urban Dramas extend the basic idea of audio plays and combine elements from interactive storytelling [21], [28], hyper-fiction [2] and user modeling [20] with mobile and pervasive computing technologies (e.g.…”

“…a scene in the drama, or an interactive component that allows the user to interact with the system. For a more detailed description of the Mobile Urban Drama concept see [18].…”

“…In [18], we introduce the concept, which has been developed based on an idea coined by the Theater Katapult. Originally, we introduced the concept and the mobile software platform for general interactive dramas with branching storylines allowing users to make choices or respond to the plot.…”

Designing a Context-Aware Architecture for Emotionally Engaging Mobile Storytelling

“…Some of the applications for managing interactive stories have used location awareness for delivering appropriate information to the user. Hansen et al [12] introduce the concept of location-based Mobile Urban Dramas, where the city becomes the stage for the drama, and the user participates to a play where the actors voices can be heard through her mobile phone headset as she moves through the town. Another interesting project, iLand [8], permits to narrate -to users equipped with mobile devices -stories related to the oral culture and traditions of the island of Madeira, delivering content related to specific locations.…”