AKN_Regie: a bridge between digital and performing arts

TL;DR

This paper introduces AKN_Regie, a software platform that bridges digital and performing arts by enabling artists to direct avatars on stage using an accessible interface within Unreal Engine, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration.

Contribution

The paper presents AKN_Regie, a novel tool integrating visual scripting, plugin, and C++ perspectives to facilitate digital and performing arts integration within Unreal Engine.

Findings

AKN_Regie enables non-programming artists to control avatars on stage.

The platform supports multiple perspectives: plugin, Blueprint, and C++.

Study of tool circulation enhances understanding of collective intelligence in arts.

Abstract

In parallel with the dissemination of information technology, we note the persistence of frontiers within creative practices, in particular between the digital arts and the performing arts. Crossings of these frontiers brought to light the need for a common appropriation of digital issues. As a result of this appropriation, the AvatarStaging platform and its software dimension AKN_Regie will be described in their use to direct avatars on a mixed theatre stage. Developed with the Blueprint visual language within Epic Games' Unreal Engine, AKN_Regie offers a user interface accessible to non-programming artists. This feature will be used to describe two perspectives of appropriation of the tool: the Plugin perspective for these users and the Blueprint perspective for programming artists who want to improve the tool. These two perspectives are then completed by a C++ perspective that aligns AKN_Regie with the language with which the engine itself is programmed. The circulations between these three perspectives are finally studied by drawing on work on the ecology of collective intelligence.