Chris Kabatsi
Artists Statement
My project is an online environment for a museum of digital art and technology. The environment would have three main components; first a way for the visitors to the real museum to interact with the visitors to the museums web site. Second it would serve as a way for visitors to the virtual museum see the exhibits that are taking place in the real museum, and third it would serve as an archive of all of the exhibits that have been on display in the museum.
One of the key aspects of an archive is its relationship to time, which in most cases is a very static relationship. I was trying to subvert the idea of an archive as a static entity to produce a more dynamic experience; I wanted to create an environment where time becomes both participatory and interactive. I chose to control the shifting of time in the online environment through an interaction between the real space and the virtual space. The floor of the museum is an interactive surface that would be able to track the movements of the visitors to the museum, and display their “electronic footprints” the IP addresses of the virtual people would also be displayed on this surface. When a person in the museum would step on one of these IP addresses it would create a dynamic link. These links can then be used to produce three dimensional intensity fields; it is these fields that can then drive the shifting of time in the virtual environment. This would produce an experience that was constantly changing based on your movements relative to the movements of the museum-goer.
I also wanted to question the idea of interface and interaction in a virtual environment, navigation and interaction in most 3d environments are predetermined and often mimic the way that we move through real space. I tried to challenge this idea again through the use of the intensity fields of time, except in this case they would be used to drive certain “virtual tides” which would begin to slightly interfere with your movements as you navigate through the space.
Another idea that I chose to explore was that of interaction between people. When you are in a real museum your interaction and conversations with other museum- goers can have a considerable effect on you experience of the museum. Within the individual artists environment I wanted to use the interaction and virtual conversations between the virtual inhabitants to change qualities of the space and possibly some exhibits.
The final idea that I was working with was an interface between the virtual space and the real space. This took the form of a “shadow wall” where the uses on each side would be represented as shadows to the users on the other side as if the real and virtual users were just separated by a translucent panel, they could then communicate back and forth in a chat interface.
Refrences
Laurel, Brenda. The Art of Human Computer Interface Design. New York: Addison Wesley, 1990.
Reality Check with Jaron Lanier, 1995.
Kelly, Kevin & Adam Heilbrun. “Virtual Reality: An Interview with Jaron Lanier”, The Whole Earth Catalog. Cali.: 1993.