xStory Series: Javier Molina

Javier Molina is an engineer, actor and media artist based in NYC, working with Virtual Reality, Motion Capture, Performance Art and Experimental Film. He is a professor teaching motion capture with performance art and the director of the VR Lab at NYU Tandon School of Engineering in MAGNET, a facility researching live performance and  social virtual reality.

He'll be discussing Halmet VR:

To Be With Hamlet is a live theater performance in Virtual Reality that allows anybody, anywhere in the world to have an intimate experience with Hamlet, one of the greatest plays ever written.

By utilizing several groundbreaking technologies, the experience will enable audiences to walk the battlements of Elsinore Castle with Prince Hamlet as he confronts the ghost of his murdered father and learns of his uncle’s treachery.

In order to bring the immediacy and intimacy of theater to the virtual space, we are usingIkinema software with Optitrack face and motion capture technology to create a live, photorealistic avatar of Prince Hamlet. A 3D scan of the actor will be applied to a virtual “skeleton” made from the motion capture data to create a virtual Prince Hamlet that is as dynamic and realistic as a live actor. The project’s M3diate technology will allow up to fifteen audience members to perceive each other as they explore Elsinore Castle together.

For nearly half a millennium, productions have given you the chance to see Hamlet. This is your first chance To Be With Hamlet.

Organized by ITP Resident, Kat Sullivan