Please Release Me - The marionette project By: Mirit Tal, Keunyoung Oh, Ryan Holsopple The marionette project "Please Release Me" is an interactive art project that allows the puppeteer to guide the marionette through a maze of explorative landscapes and stories. Description Please Release Me was conceived as an installation art project where users are invited to experience an interactive puppet show. The audience is invited to play the role of puppeteers and guide the marionette through a series of virtual worlds. By taking hold of the wooden handle and raising the feet and arms of the marionette over a small stage, the puppeteer moves a video image which is projected from behind the puppeteer, this allows both the puppet and puppeteer to be cast as shadows in the video image, placing them in the magical world. The puppeteer can then guide the marionette through each world, which is filled with a mystical soundscape as well as clues and information which serve as storytelling elements in this freeform narrative. In each of the virtual worlds there is an entrance and an exit point, so this allows the puppeteer to find the door to the next virtual world. The project includes several layers of richness including: 1. A small stage that the marionette is presented on which has five switches that are activated by the position of the marionette on the stage. 2. An accelerometer is measuring the pitch and yaw of the wooden handle that is directly linked to a computer program which allows the user to physically control video images and explore the visual worlds. 3. Video images projected onto a wall, or screen, that casts the shadow of the puppeteer and marionette into the visual world that we have created. The use of an accelerometer on the wooden handle of the marionette allows for a sensitive response to the slightest pitch and roll movements. This allows the user to move the marionette through the virtual world with ease and because of the sensitive nature of the response the puppeteer feels a unique connection from the puppet to the virtual world they are investigating. View a video sample User scenario The Marionette rests in a holder on a small stage in front of a video projector. A prospective user can pick up the marionette and begin to walk it around the stage, when a switch is activated on the stage by the magnetic sensors that we have installed on the puppet, the marionette is whisped into aone of three visual worlds (depending on which switch is activated first). The user can then explore the visual world that was selected by moving the marionette around the stage and maneuvering the wooden handlw attatched to the marionette. >> Click on a picture to view the quicktime VR clip << The project was presented at the ITP winter show 2004 Read Core 77 review on ITP winter show 2004 31 Down - Radio Theater