Karagoz goes digital

Indonesian shadow puppetry has gone digital, so why not Turkish shadow puppetry too?

iKaragoz is an app for iPhone and Android developed by a Turkish firm called Anakule. They are promoting it as the first puppet application for mobile devices, but it's definitely not (several others including iPuppeteer and Pollock's Toy Theatre app have been on the market for years).

The app allows the user to control the characters onscreen intuitively by simply moving their smart phone or tablet.In addition to the traditional Turkish Karagoz puppets, additional packs with characters from Cambodian, Chinese, Indian, Indonesian, Thai and Greek puppetry traditions are also available.

Here's the Wayang Kulit version in action:



iKaragoz was designed by Uğur Doğan with the assistance of Turkish puppeteer Mehmet Saylan. It's available to download from the iTunes Store and Google Play. I haven't had a chance to try it out myself yet, but if someone does please let me know what you think!

Via Puppetry News.

Puppetry on the iPad

I'm really intrigued by the possibilities that Multi-touch devices like the iPad might offer puppeteers in the near future. Several developers are exploring exactly that and looking for ways to combine puppetry and interactive media. One of these is iPuppeteer, which allows you to control a simple, marionette-like puppet on an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. Another is Pollock's Toy Theatre, a new iPad app that rides the wave of resurgent interest in toy theatre that's been happening during the past few years and tries to take it in to the digital age.

While both of these apps seem to offer only basic functionality (for now), it will be interesting to watch the app market and see what develops over the next year or so.

Cross-posted from PuppetVision.