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Content
Content for the DimensionElevator is made up of four synchronized video clips. Each clip corresponds to one wall. Initial baseline content types that we would like to experiment with are:
Record an actual environment with 4 video cameras.
Create an environment with computer graphics or traditional animation techniques.
Experiment with the perception of location, size, motion and balance.
Freeform creation on four large dynamic canvases.
Video intended for use with other forms of art within the space, i.e. sculpture, painting, dance and theater.
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Please see Content Creation for more information.
The content defines the experience of the DimensionElevator. Actual pieces are created for the DimensionElevator system by creating sets of four synchronous videos.
In order to understand how the DimensionElevator can work we think it is useful to look at the most basic ways that it can be used. These are not pieces in themselves, but they lay the groundwork for how pieces might be created.
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A winter landscape, a mountaintop, a kitchen, a busy street, an event, a gallery, an airplane wing, sitting at a desk in first grade. What is it like to be somewhere? What is it like to be someone? What is the difference between actually being somewhere and experiencing it through this system?
We plan to create a mount that will allow four video cameras to be attached simultaneously via their tripod mount holes. Each camera will point perpendicularly out from the center of the mount. Each camera must have a wide angle lens capable of shooting a 90 degree field of view. We call this device the omnicam.
Abstract or representational environments can be completely created by people rather than simply recorded. An environment can be created using 3D visualization software. Four simulated cameras can be placed in this virtual environment in the same way that video cameras can be placed in a real environment. This virtual omnicam can be moved through the environment and generate four separate video clips that can then be used as content.
Environments can also be created using traditional animation techniques. The four clips could be drawn or painted by hand. Recorded video clips could be used as a reference for an artist to create their own interpretation of the recorded environment.
This ability to create places is one of our strongest fascinations with the DimensionElevator. It is the ability to enter and experience environments that do not exist in the world that we know.
Our sense of space and motion is dependent on our vision. We perceive our own state relative to what we see of the outside world.
Shrinking pattern makes you feel bigger.
Growing pattern makes you feel smaller
Pattern moving in one direction makes you feel as if you are moving in another direction
Tilting pattern makes you feel like you are tilting
Beyond recreating environments, the system is simply four walls with a completely fluid coloring. Four static images can be projected. Four unrelated moving images can be projected. Anything.
The inclusion of other objects in the space could have a strong effect on the interpretation of the images on the walls. A painting can be hung from one wall, and the video of the entire space can reflect the imagery of the painting. The interior of the space can be decorated as if it were a bedroom or some other actual environment. A car, or a stool, or a couch, or a doorway can be placed in the interior of the space. A performance can take place within the space, essentially using it as a set. Additional video, slide, or light projections can be done from the inside of the space.
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The implementation of the DimensionElevator in our current proposal only allows the playback of shows, analogous to putting a videotape in a VCR. Getting just this system to work will be a tremendous first step. Once this is accomplished there are other techniques for generating and manipulating content that we would like to explore:
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The capacity to manipulate the content in real-time allows pieces to become customizable, the piece be changed to match music or some other external factor. It is also a requirement for making the system interactive
Mixing - We would like to be able to blend and connect different "shows" together in real-time in the same way that a video-mixer can blend the images of two different videotapes together.
Real-time 2D - We would like to have a computer system that could generate 4 channels of video using standard drawing algorithms and sprite manipulation.
Real-time 3D - We would like to be able to navigate through a 3D environment and have each projector display the proper view. This is very similar to the CAVE .
We would like to be able to display live environments. In the (NORTHSPACE) piece the DimensionElevator gets its signal from a live omnicam somewhere above the arctic circle.
In the (VROOM) piece two different DimensionElevators get their content from an omnicam located in the center of the other DimensionElevator.
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Here are some of the pieces that we would like to create.
(CLOSER APPROACH)
On a wide flat field or beach draw the 16 by 16 foot boundaries of the DimensionElevator out on the ground. Set up an omnicam in the center. Record people walking in from a great distance. Have the people approach the omnicam but not cross the boundary line. Eventually have them cross the line and approach the camera and pass by it.
When this is played back a distinct difference will be experienced when the actors cross the boundary. As long as the actors are outside of the boundary, they will look realistic, as they would in real life if they approached you from a distance. When they reach the boundary, they will be life sized and participants viewing the piece could approach the screen and stand next to them. But as soon as an actor crosses the boundary, their projection will become larger than life sized. Their projection will be entering the DimensionElevator in a fashion and sharing the space with the participants. They might walk through a spot where a person is standing.
(TIDE)
Set up an omnicam on a tidal flat and do a time-lapse recording of one full tide. Position the camera such that half of the time it is on a sandy flat and half of the time it is over water.
(PAINTING)
Create an actual space that has the same dimensions as the DimensionElevator and paint it white.
Set up an omnicam in the middle of the room and record.
Have one or more people paint the room over the course of 1 or more days.
Alter the speed of the recorded movie. Sometimes have it play normal speed, sometimes have it play at an accelerated rate.
I would also be interested to do this with a much smaller space, say 2 feet on each side.
(ELEMENTAL)
A series of computer generated abstract ambient landscapes, each one based on one of the traditional elements: earth, air, fire, water.
(PURE MATH)
Sinewave landscapes
Wire grids
complex dot network - watch the dots grow lines connecting - then skin
layers of color
networks of text
fields of numbers
pastures of pixels
(WORLD RESTRUCTURE)
Film an actual environment. Create a 3d model to match the recorded environment. Create a 3d model of an alternate environment.
Display the actual environment. Then show it start to flicker and degrade, to breakdown. Start to show wireframe outlines from the 3d model that matches the recorded environment superimposed over the video. In places where the image is particularly unstable, show through the alternate environment.
After sometime have the whole system go chaotic and flip over to the alternate environment.
The piece will be a 30 minute loop of the instability between the two environments, mediated by the technical breakdown.
(SHADOW)
Project some kind of simple environment or pattern. Then have black outlines of people start to obscure the images. create the black outlines in such a way that the participants inside the DimensionElevator perceive the outlines to be shadows of actual people moving in front of the projectors outside of the room.
Start with only one person and perhaps move up to 40 or 50 people surrounding the room.
(SILHOUETTES)
Record many peoples silhouettes walking, stopping, and talking. Mix them together and play them back on the walls in all sizes and colors.
(DREAM II)
an infinite grid on all sides.
scale changes and the grids on all four sides grow until one square fills each wall - you connect on all four walls with four walls of four other DimensionElevators.
people can be seen in each room.
suddenly the sides accelerate up and you are in free fall
below a vast horizon
into the ocean we plunge
now bobbing at the surface, water lapping at head height
sun shining on all four walls.
(BUY NOW)
It is possible that in the future some form of immersive environment will become as ubiquitous as television. How will an immersive environment be used in the home, at the mall, at school, in the boardroom, at a tradeshow?
I am already offended by the onslaught of some of the previews that I experience in a movie theatre. I feel that it is disrespectful to subject a captive audience to the power of a 20 foot tall screen and a 5 channel sound system. How will commercial interests shape the content for these devices in the future? (and what can we do about it)
I would like to create a piece that hovers between a realistic prediction and a satire of the future, that will act as a warning to the potential abuses of this kind of experience system.
(EVERYONE)
What would the future be like if virtual reality was commonplace?
I would like to create pieces that explore how this kind of technology might be integrated into our future:
- A tutorial on the American Revolution, on French, or on Calculus.
- A "reality-mail" left on someone's message machine when they were not in.
- A simulation of two people talking via some sort of omnicam device.
(RANGE)
Experiment with the full range of the DimensionElevator's fundamental capabilities, this is a good exercise in determining its limits, but also should create some interesting pieces:
1) Spatial Resolution - fine vs. blocky
a) Fine in some places, blocky in others.
b) start with 4 pixels, one on each wall.
i) change phase, have the pixels cover the corners.
2) Temporal Resolution - fine vs. blocky
a) fine in some places, blocky in others.
3) Clear vs. Blurry
4) Fast vs. Slow
5) Dark vs. Bright
6) Big vs. Small
(NORTHSPACE)
A signal from a live omnicam somewhere above the arctic circle.
(VROOM)
Two separate DimensionElevators get their content from an omnicam located in the center of the other DimensionElevator. The DimensionElevators could be in the same space, different buildings in the same city, different cities.
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