Shapester’s Magic Alphabet is an interdisciplinary, practice based research project that designs and creates a new virtual world based on four key principals: iconic form; narration through pantomime and gesture; visual and audio performance for young children; new and emerging digital technologies.

This research seeks to explore theoretical issues of how children connect to, and identify with, simple visuals and sounds. It examines principals of visual narration and performance through the close analysis of existing digital media and live performance for children, iconic connections to form, expressions of movement, timing, character development and the illusionistic, transfomitory nature of interactive virtual space. Shapester’s Magic Alphabet attempts to construct a new world where the narration of events is created in the imaginative interpretation of the child’s mind.

The approach of this exegesis engages with the practical research project via two modes of explanation. One is the narrative through which the researcher synthesises his experience in the field of performance. The second mode is a sequential analysis of the technological aspects of the practical project.