I am very interested in working on projects that explore the intersection of theatre and new media. In 2018 and 2019 I was part of a team that created an Art Comes Alive, Immersive Experience in which we animated and integrated live performance into a set of eight paintings from museums across Europe which documented the famous Ommegang festival held in Brussels in 1615. This was a joint project between the University of Maryland and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and included high-resolution scans from artwork in the collections of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels and the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid. We combined elements in the eight separate paintings into an animated parade that was then projection-mapped in 360 degrees around an audience. A live performance framed the piece with a prologue and an epilogue,  helping the audience feel as if they had stepped into the paintings. The project was shown at the University of Maryland in 2018 and we presented it at the V&A in 2019.

This project also proposes an augmented reality experience to enhance the “Triumph of Isabella” exhibition and immersive experience at the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library and the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland beginning in June 2018.  This project creates animated augmented reality “pop-outs” consisting of animation and theatrical monologues triggered by scanning select parts of the “Triumph of Isabella” panels with the HP Reveal app on a mobile device.

To build a strong foundation of knowledge for our digital project, we consulted a number of sources for information on the historical context of the 1615 Ommegang in Brussels, and to gain insight on the figures and events portrayed in the paintings. Among these sources were James Laver’s Isabella’s Triumph, which was immensely helpful to us as we honed in on each of the pageant wagons featured in Panel 5, their sponsors, themes, and featured performers. This was necessary to develop key characters and their monologues for the Augmented Reality application.

Once we identified five character profiles, we developed a list of research questions for each character. For instance, for the Body Double (or Actress Playing Isabella) the primary research questions were: who were the women on the court float featuring the actress playing Isabella? What were the prevailing attitudes towards play-acting, particularly for women, during this period in the Spanish Netherlands? What kind of preparations might a lady of the court have taken to prepare for such a role? Likewise, for the Parrot Boy the primary questions were: what were prevailing beliefs concerning the Jesuits during this period in the Spanish Netherlands? What was their relationship to the Spanish crown? Were the “parrots” indeed pigeons? What role did the Jesuits play in the ongoing religious conflict in the Spanish Netherlands?