The Dream Machine, a project by the Interactive Cinema Group of MIT Media Lab, is a very varied, interactive story that is designed to entertain a large audience. It uses techniques from film, theatre and architectural design for a story that spans different locations, both in the real and the fictional, virtual world.
The project is accessible via the World Wide Web, the so-called Pager networks and in several public spaces. In those public spaces, one can deliberately or accidentally find oneself in visual, dynamic dream landscapes and meet other users or fictional characters. These ‘stations’, equipped with large video projections and remote sensing technology, provide passers-by with an opportunity to get a glimpse of this narrative world, to meet its inhabitants and influence the story line. Glorianna Davenport is associate professor of Media Arts and Sciences, linked to the Media Lab at MIT, where she has taught since 1978 and researches the design and production of interactive multimedia, computer-assisted cinematographical narrative techniques etc.
