The Temporal Window: Explicit Representation of Future Actions in Improvisational Performances.

Improvisation often requires performers to anticipate each other's upcoming actions to coordinate their performance. Traditionally, improvisation does not involve explicit representation of upcoming actions, relying instead on implicit cues and overt gestures. Providing a concrete representation of these actions may impact the nature of improvisation. To explore how performers use such a representation, we introduce the \"temporal window\", a shared workspace for collaborators to indicate upcoming actions shortly before those actions are carried out. We describe versions for music and storytelling, and present results of an observational study of use of these systems by 11 pairs of participants. Participants used the temporal window in various ways, including using knowledge about upcoming actions when performing live, and adjusting upcoming actions based on knowledge of both the live performance and upcoming actions. These observations can inform design to support improvisation as well as other systems that support anticipating upcoming actions.