Play Lesser CD

announcements:
report on teknika radica
Alexei Shulgin lecture tomorrow
Videoslab (tonight after class in porter pub)
VA87 ­ one credit course Wed 10-noon in my studio

Webboard comments

VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS/ REAL Environments

Intro:
Displacement of body/mind/spirit through technology

I. textual displacement - literature
serial novels - identification with characters - projection out of body

II. telecommunications
early 1900's
radio & TV - creation of "Virtual Space" through Fireside chat (Roosevelt)
you joined him in space as a listener
new way of experiencing physical body/identity
objects (decoder rings) moved out of "virtual" place into real world

III. Information technologies
textual interfaces on computer network
Bulletin Board services - "community"

IV. Virtual Reality/Cyberspace (overlap with all 3)

moving away from physical shared space - implications for public space

JARON LANIER - VR pioneer/theorist
JPL Research

Conception of VR now
-data glove -patented by JPL
- head-mounted display (stereoscopic image/headphones - audio important)
- position tracker

glove (or suit) tracks motion in space/maps that into virtual terrain

term "VIRTUAL" as understood now, first came into use by IBM in 1960's
"non-physical link between process and machines"

VIRTUAL - definition = practically or in effect, but not in actual fact

eye is not just looking - eye is moving, perception is ACTIVE not PASSIVE

INTERFACES:
Hardware/software (graphical user interface)
other types of interfaces (besides just visual)
How do we communicate with the machine & vice versa (input/ouput)
- mouse/keyboard
- light sensors
- tactile -  feedback in gloves
- smell - difficult, and not alot of application use, hard to "clear palette"
- taste - too messy (put ball in mouth, unsanitary)
- bio sensors

VR/Industry use
- ARCHITECTURE previews - client can see beforehand
- TRAINING - flight simluations - first flight is first real flight - simulation can simulate dangerous accidents/situations - thought of as better training than real world flight training
- MEDECINE - surgery (training & actual)

LANIER's vision
"post-symbolic communication" physical world difficult to change -
communicate with one another's our imaginations beyond just words
"shared, lucid dreaming"

AUDIO is crucial to illusion - people that watched video games with higher quality audio thought that the visuals were higher quality & vice versa
- crucial to sense of involvement

SENSORY COMBINATORICS - design place for all senses - presents new challenges to artists/designers of systems & experiences

PIONEERS OF VR

Morton L. Heilig
The Cinema of the Future - article written in 1955
filling 100% of visual frame
outlines this...waits for others to take up challenge
***show site
nothing happens - he decides to make
SENSORAMA - 1956 - immersive cinema experience
-3D film technology
--electric motors
--music & sounds
--aromas!
--wind
--seat vibrations/tilting
FAILED - no market in entertainment//made a few for arcades
Disney themepark rides now - are direct antecedents (Honey, I Shrunk the Audience)

began as prototype
old motorcycle seat
Had to design & make every component - including 3D portable film camera
5 films
then installed as coin-operated - 1962 at 52nd & broadway

IVAN SUTHERLAND (inventor of Sketchpad)
developed first fully functional portable head-mounted display - helmet
- see algorithms & mathematical functions & interact with them

MYRON KRUEGER - late 1960's
conceived of "VideoPlace"
coined term "Artificial Reality" precursor to Virtual Reality
***show site
"true computer art form"
completely free interface - unencumbered - motion crucial - keyboard sux
trained as composer
concerned that technology was evolving, but not physical bodies along with it - start with body - ask what do bodies do well, what do people like to do? adapt interface to that
instrument space instead of body
Camera recorded person, rerecorded another person in a space & composited them in screen environment

1973 realized - continued to develop
museum exhibition/display
50 different programs
dance, play ball, draw, interact with scale - new type of play
found out: image of themselves has integrity - is extension of self
if someone touches image - it is "felt"
How does illusion retain traces of physical
NEW KINDS OF INTERACTION/INTIMACY

ELECTRONIC CAFE INTERNATIONAL - Kit Galloway/Sherrie Rabinowitz
LA - Santa Monica
1980's - connect poets & musicians & artists internationally
collaboration
1990's ARTISTS USE

THREE EXCERPTS - introduce

Notice different interfaces

Jeffrey Shaw - Legible Cities
Sheldon Brown - Mi Casa es Su Casa - SD Children's Museum
Char Davies  - Osmose

BREAK

FINAL HALF OF CLASS:

Other ideas about Virtual Environments

RTMark (market and legal system as virtual spaces)
MAUVE DESERT/interactive cinema  (story as a virtual space)
Chinatown DVD ­ artistic interpretation of real environment

Assignment #2 ­ Virtual Environments