Personal Language Layer

Interactive illustration — non-confidential

Understand the words.
Stay with the stage.

You set the pace here — tap the stage, use the buttons, or press Space / ↑. In a venue, no new staff role is needed: the surtitle operator's existing cue can drive the house display and this layer together, and manual takeover always remains as the safety net.

Where do the words meet your eyes?
Your language — each patron could choose their own

What this illustration is — and isn't

Real renders — not a mock-up

The green text is the actual 576×288 output of the official simulator of a leading smart-glasses maker: its native font, size, spacing, and cue states, captured from the working prototype and overlaid on an illustrative auditorium scene. The manufacturer is deliberately not named on this page.

No new staff role

Designed to follow the venue's existing surtitle cueing — one operator press, every display — or a prepared timeline with drift correction, which the prototype already demonstrates. Live surtitles already reach patrons' personal braille devices in production elsewhere; this adds a wearable output to a proven pattern. Manual takeover always remains.

Private by design

No camera, microphone, network service, analytics, accounts, or audience personal data — and no phone in the patron's hand. This page itself loads no trackers, no cookies, and no external assets.

Already proven — newly practical

Personal titling is established: seat-back screens, caption apps, and surtitle glasses trialled in European venues since 2017 — yet some venues' own booking systems still mark seats “No Surtitle View”. Wearable displays have meanwhile become lighter, more discreet, and closer to everyday eyewear, so the question is finally practical to re-ask.

Each patron, their own language

Every audience member would select the language of their prepared surtitles from their own seat — without changing anything for the rest of the audience or the venue's display. This page already demonstrates the switch: the English and French cue sets above are both rendered by the same native glasses display.

Everyday frame — camera-free

How it would work in a venue

  1. Prepared, authorised text. Cues are written and cleared in advance — no transcription and no machine translation on the night. A later phase could use models trained on surtitling conventions to help segment and fit that prepared text for comfortable reading — drafted offline and always human-approved before the performance.
  2. One cue, every display. The venue's existing surtitle operator advances the house board and the personal layer together; a prepared timeline with human drift correction is the alternative.
  3. The patron picks a language, then just watches. One choice from their seat before the performance — nothing to hold afterwards; manual takeover and the venue's existing accessibility fallback always remain.

Core question

Can an audience member follow the words while keeping visual attention on the performers and the stage picture?

A deliberately bounded first evaluation

Staff-only or otherwise controlled: two to five camera-free display units, authorised prepared text, a named human operator, and the venue's existing accessibility fallback. No recording, no audience personal data, and no production claims.

Contact

Joffrey Van Asten
Auckland, New Zealand
joffrey.vanasten@gmail.com