Pavlov

PAVLOV is an interactive theatre experience for one, that uses 3D audio to immerse you in our story in a whole new way.

Location

Liverpool

Date

Tue May 23 2017

Our BTS photo of the Pavlov setup

Behind every ground-breaking invention, is a trial period. Dumat, the mega corporation developing the “PAVLOV” Artificial Intelligence system, needs plenty of volunteers.

PAVLOV is an interactive theatre experience for one, that uses 3D audio to immerse you in our story in a whole new way.

Set in a world where the field of AI is about to make its biggest breakthrough, the show questions where mankind’s ever changing relationship with technology could take us.

You could be one of the first to try this personalised technological experience as you join us in a 15-minute exploration of LIPAs lesser known spaces.

“Progress in Machine learning and artificial intelligence is accelerating, and we believe we are at a seminal moment. Which is why we’re pleased to introduce…PAVLOV.

PAVLOV is conversational, an ongoing two-way dialogue that understands your world and helps you get things done. It makes it easy to buy movie tickets while on the go, to find that perfect restaurant for your family to grab a quick bite before the movie starts, and then help you navigate to the theatre.

As a valued customer, we are now able to offer you an exclusive preview of PAVLOV. Soon, the rest of the world will be able to get acquainted with PAVLOV too, but we are giving you the exclusive opportunity to try our first.

Sign up here.

We’ll guide you through the steps.”

Creative Team:

  • Producer/Sound Designer - Findlay Claydon

  • Writer/Director - Harry Machray

  • Designer - Dylan Howells

  • Composer - Tammy Howarth

  • Stage Manager - Kate Condon

Cast:

  • Pavlov - Dylan Howells

  • Margot - Jenny Plackemeier

  • Sidney - Kate Condon

Geeky info:

Created in 2017 (pre GDPR) we wrote PAVLOV to reflect on the vast amounts of data collected about us by large tech companies, a fact that at the time, was surprisingly not as obvious as it is today.

PAVLOV is a promenade theatrical experience for a single audience member at a time. The audience member is asked to put on a pair of headphones at the start of the experience, allowing them to hear their personal assistant “Pavlov”. Audio is transmitted to the headphones from our control room via a Sennheiser wireless IEM system.

A radio mic allows voice actors and operators to hear the audience member, providing an element of interactivity to the show. We also created a custom host application to receive OSC communication from our Stage Manager’s iPad, this allowed us even more control over the audience members experience.

Also attached to the headphones is a smartphone streaming real-time accelerometer data to allow headtracking. This allows us to use ambisonics, and binaural audio to place sounds in 3D space around the audience member.

Tools we used:

  • Qlab

  • Reaper, with the following ambisonics plugins:

    • AmbiX

    • Blue Ripple O3A Core

  • Touch OSC

  • Dante