wanted:Guild is a new take on interactive documentary that uses spatial exploration to fuel story. Through audience interaction with audio nodes a narrative is revealed about the intersection of the real and virtual lives of hardcore World of Warcraft gamers. wanted: Guild offers a peek behind the screen for the casual and non-gamer, revealing to them a world of complexity that is often overlooked.
(Source: Elo conference: First encounters 2014)
View from Within is an experiment in storytelling using an infinite canvas framework. The project was inspired by Scott McCloud’s vision for the future of webcomics as an infinite canvas, with the browser as a portal to an experience unbounded by the traditional borders of the printed page. The work is constructed from layers of hundreds of hand-drawn illustrations all viewed as if at one scale, and thus incapable of forming a coherent scaling scene without a zooming digital framework. When used continuously in this manner, the infinite canvas does not resemble the panel-based methods of sequential art: the space in-between, along, and outside the path are as or more essential than the linear chain of nodes. This iteration is built in Unity as a 2D canvas designed for viewing through a prototype augmented reality headset, the Seebright. The Seebright uses a set of mirrors and optics to overlay a stereographic view of a smartphone screen in front of the viewer. By eliminating the physical screen, we can explore the idea of the infinite canvas as a virtual construction, fully removed from the metaphor of page and portal. (Source: ELO 2014 Conference)
Hearts and Minds: The Interrogations Project was developed at the Electronic Visualization Lab (EVL) at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) for the CAVE2™, the next-generation large-scale virtual-reality 320-degree panoramic environment which provides users with the ability to see 3D stereoscopic content in a near seamless flat LCD technology at 37 Megapixels in 3D resolution matching human visual acuity. The CAVE immerses people into worlds too large, too small, too dangerous, too remote, or too complex to be viewed otherwise. This project makes use of the CAVE environment for a multisensory artwork that addresses a complex contemporary problem: as American soldiers are returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is becoming increasingly clear that some of them participated in interrogation practices and acts of abusive violence with detainees for which they were not properly trained or psychologically prepared. This has in turn left many soldiers dealing with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder on their return home, and left many unresolved questions about the moral calculus of using torture as an interrogation strategy in military operations. The project was developed through a unique collaboration between artists, scientists, and researchers from four Universities. The production team includes filmmaker Dr. Roderick Coover, writer Dr. Scott Rettberg, artist and visualization researcher Daria Tsoupikova, computer scientist Arthur Nishimoto, sound designer Mark Partridge, production assistant Mark Baratta, and senior research programmer Lance Long. Dr. Jeffrey Murer of St. Andrews University, Scotland also contributed as a consultant on the project. The project is based on interviews of American soldiers conducted by political scientist, Dr. John Tsukayama. (Source: Authors' Paper Introduction at VISAP Art Show 2014)
Built with Unity
Written in Unity for use with Oculus RIFT glasses, Cardamom of the Dead is a literary VR environment - the user wanders through a virtual environment filled with a vast collection of things a narrator, heard in voice-over, has hoarded over years (decades? centuries?). The environment is filled with debris and stories and the piece is ultimately a meditation on collecting as madness, consoling practice and memory palace.
(Source: ELO 2014 Media Arts Show)
