Chapter eleven of Immersive Audiovisual Environments.
This time traveling back in time a couple decades, and collecting Interactive Spaces developed in the 90s. Find more under the tag “Immersive Audiovisual Environments”.
[pic. OSMOSE, Char Davies / THE LEGIBLE CITY, Jeffrey Shaw /
BOUNDARY FUNCTIONS, Scott Snibbe]
By Scott Snibbe, 1998. More info at the project's page.
WORLD SKIN
"Armed with a camera, visitors are placed in a sinister war zone that is visualized on a large projection screen in 3D animation and video."
"The war images are a collage of photographs and sequences from news reports from different zones and theaters of war; they show a world filled with mute violence. By operating photo cameras that are suspended from the ceiling, visitors take pictures of the war scenes and experience how the camera becomes a 'weapon' that enables them to wipe out the projected images."
By Maurice Benayoun, 1997. Project page from the 2010's WorldSkin version at V2.
OSMOSE
"Immersive interactive virtual-reality environment installation with 3D computer graphics and interactive 3D sound, a head-mounted display and real-time motion tracking based on breathing and balance. Osmose is a space for exploring the perceptual interplay between self and world, i.e., a place for facilitating awareness of one's own self as consciousness embodied in enveloping space."
By Char Davies, 1995. More info at the project's page.
THE LEGIBLE CITY
"In The Legible City the visitor is able to ride a stationary bicycle through a simulated representation of a city that is constituted by computer-generated three-dimensional letters that form words and sentences along the sides of the streets."
"The handlebar and pedals of the interface bicycle give the viewer interactive control over direction and speed of travel. The physical effort of cycling in the real world is gratuitously transposed into the virtual environment, affirming a conjunction of the active body in the virtual domain."
By Jeffrey Shaw, 1988-1991. More info at the project's page.
DESERT RAIN
"Desert Rain is a war game. Six players at a time suit up and go into the virtual desert which is video projected onto water spray"
"Standing on a footplate and zipped into a cubicle, each of the six team members explores motels, deserts and underground bunkers, communicating with each other within the virtual world . . . a world projected onto a screen of falling water. You have 30 minutes to find the target, complete the mission, and get to the final room, where others may have a very different idea of what actually happened out there."
