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Context
Many video art pieces use large video projections, but they are mostly projected on a screen that can be seen to exist within a room. In our installation the screens will define the space. We hope that because the video is everywhere, its presence will in effect become invisible. Video is simply a tool to color the walls.
In the commercial realm, the Imax theaters share our goal of creating an immersive environment. A significant difference with our project is that every location within our space maps to a specific location in the projected environment. Whereas in a theater, each seat is essentially equivalent, some just have better views. The most similar existing systems to ours are virtual reality research tools like the CAVEs.
An important difference between this project and existing immersive environments like Imax theaters and CAVEs is that it is much less costly to create this installation and content for it.
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No structured approach to this topic, just different thoughts.
In conceiving this project and thinking about its meaning and its context, we are wrestling with the concepts of art and technology, and where this project lies in regards to them. Is a television art? It is a 90s cliche, but we ask it anyway, is the medium the message? We propose that the creation of an object that can display an image recorded in another time and place is art because of how it changes a persons view of the world and of what is possible. So to us, the idea of a television, perhaps the first television created, is art. The one sitting in my apartment, that's just a TV.
Our current endeavor is a technical exercise along similar lines. The DimensionElevator says: reality is flexible. Reality is based on perception and ones perception can be changed. However, the DimensionElevator is just the possibility of illustrating that, it is the enabler. We create it so that we can create immersive environments - it is a common component in many of our ideas, so we choose to separate it out and give it an identity of its own.
We are interested in creating realities. People already do this, they remember, imagine and dream. We would like to share our imaginations.
The DimensionElevator is a form of virtual reality. It is related to Imax films, the CAVE and 3D videogames. However, we would like to explore content beyond the current educational/adventure films, research and military simulations, and shoot-em-up and driving games that characterize these systems.
Raves (and rock concerts before them) are a forum to experiment with the pure visual on a massive scale. The aesthetic here is raw experience, intensity, altered reality, over-stimulation. The freedom and creative
energy associated with these events has been an inspiration for this project.
Many video art pieces use large video projections, but they are mostly projected on a screen that can be seen to exist within a room. Within our installation the screens will define the space. We hope that because the video is everywhere, its presence will in effect become invisible. Video is simply a tool to color the walls.
However, with content that is aimed at reproducing an actual environment, an aspect of the piece will be a comparison between the actual environment and the DimensionElevator reproduction of it. In that respect there will still be a consciousness of the video in the minds of the participants.
On a television monitor or a film screen, there is no real size or place relationship to the viewer. Audience members sit anywhere, close or far, the difference is simply how well you can see the images.
An immersive environment creates a new relationship between the viewer and the viewed. The projected images in our installation have a definite size and place, they have a definite relationship to the floor, to each other, and to the viewer. Because the entire space is surrounded, the projections define the space, and the projections are also defined by the space. If the images on the walls represent only a two inch high environment, then two perceptions can occur depending on whether the reality of the images or the reality of the physical space is sensed more strongly by the participant:
1. The space between the walls, the room and the participants, are converted to the mini-scale.
2. The projected images are interpreted as larger than life because of their relationship to the 12 foot high room.
The space within the room is remapped with another meaning, with new content based on the images on the walls.
How does it feel to be in a simulated environment, how is it different from reality? It is frustrating that you can only look, not touch, or even choose your exploration beyond the direction in which you look, like a baby in a baby carriage. If the reality was recorded in an environment with other people, whose first person perspective are we getting, how do people react to you? If you are on a city street downtown and people are passing by, how do they treat you? Are you in a business suit, are you a bum, or are you as invisible as a lamppost?
Art in Immersive Environments
http://www.hitl.washington.edu/projects/knowledge_base/artapps.html#Exhibits
The CAVE
http://www.evl.uic.edu/EVL/VR/
http://www.fakespace.com
Char Davies
http://www.immersense.com
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