Resource Library: Multimedia/Resource Library: Multimedia.iso/hypertxt/msdos/montana0/jnq.020

Text File | 1993-03-10 | 13KB | 237 lines

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_________________________________________________________________
JUNE 1992    NUMBER  58    VOLUME 13 NUMBER 3
_________________________________________________________________

Welcome to ART COM, an online magazine forum dedicated to the
interface of contemporary art and new communication technologies.

You are invited to send information for possible inclusion. We
are especially interested in options that can be acted upon:
including conferences, exhibitions, and publications. Proposals
for guest edited issues are also encouraged. Send submissions to:

   [e-mail]

Back issues of ART COM can be accessed on the Art Com Electronic
Network (ACEN) on the Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (WELL),
available through the CompuServe Packet Network and PC Pursuit.

To access the Art Com Electronic Network on the WELL,
enter  g acen  at the Ok: prompt. The Art Com Electronic
Network is also accessible on USENET as alt.artcom.
For access information, send email to: [e-mail].

*Guest Editor: Fred Truck, [e-mail]
*Editor: Carl Eugene Loeffler
*Systems: Fred Truck and Gil MinaMora

ART COM projects include:

ART COM MAGAZINE, an electronic forum dedicated to contemporary
art and new communication technologies.

ART COM ELECTRONIC NETWORK (ACEN), an electronic network dedicat-
ed to contemporary art, featuring publications, online art gal-
leries, art information database, and bulletin boards.

ART COM SOFTWARE, international distributors of interactive video
and computer art.

ART COM TELEVISION, international distributors of innovative
video to broadcast television and cultural presenters.

CONTEMPORARY ARTS PRESS, publishers and distributors of books on
contemporary art, specializing in postmodernism, video, computer
and performance art.

ART COM, P.O.B. 193123 Rincon,San Francisco,CA,94119-3123,USA.
WELL E-MAIL: [e-mail]
TEL: [phone]  FAX: [phone]
_____________________________________________________________________

ARCHAEOPTERYX
        An Abstract
                by Fred Truck

ARCHAEOPTERYX is a book that explores the broad theme of attempts artists
have made in human powered flight. In this tradition I include my own
experiences using virtual reality techniques to create an artist's flight
simulator. The basic impulse for my flight simulator work came from
flying dreams, often expressed culturally through the man-bird image. A
very early mythological expression of the man-bird image, which is
complete with shamanistic shape changing, appears in the Assyrian myth of
Etana, who assumes the form of an eagle to fly to the home of the gods in
his quest for an heir. The Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus is also an
illustration of the man-bird image, but in this tale Daedalus is an
engineer and a craftsman who flies for his freedom, not a shaman like
Etana, who talks with the gods.

The figure of Daedalus prepares the way for the efforts Leonardo da Vinci
made in the 1590s to build an ornithopter, or a heavier-than-air machine
that is sustained in and powered through the air by flapping wings, like
a bird or a bat. I also considered the work of Vladimir Tatlin, the
Russian Constructivist artist, who breathed life into the discredited
concept of the ornithopter with his beautifully designed and constructed
Letatlin. As Letatlin, like Leonardo's machine, failed to fly, it is
considered a kinetic sculpture; Tatlin himself called it an "aerial
bicycle" and a "consumer article."

Originally, I made my models of Leonardo's ornithopter and Letatlin for
animations. I used Paracomp's Swivel 3D to generate and shade my work. I
animated the models in Swivel, and then exported them to MacroMind's
Director for further processing. I also processed these animations in my
own software, ArtEngine. I continued working with them for a year, off
and on, but gradually moved on to other work.

In October of 1991, I had an opportunity to work with virtual reality at
the Banff Centre for the Arts in Banff, Alberta, Canada. This happened
because Carl Loeffler, CEO of Art Com, who was invited for a 10 week
residency through the Art Studio program, had prior commitments and
generously split the residency with me.

The theme of the residency was the BIOAPPARATUS. The main activity of the
BIOAPPARATUS residency was the Virtual Seminar on the BIOAPPARATUS, at
which time the residents disseminated information generated during our
discussions on the meaning of the term BIOAPPARATUS and its relationship
to virtual reality. For this seminar, I wrote a paper in which I proposed
an artist's flight simulator, using virtual reality techniques, a
hardware interface of my own design, and my 3D model of Leonardo's
ornithopter.

Many in the BIOAPPARATUS residency focused on problems they perceived
with virtual reality technology. Chief among the problems that surfaced
was the slow rate of frame display (about 10 frames a second for virtual
reality systems that are working and running well, as opposed to 30
frames a second for believable animations). The slow rate of frame
display limits image complexity.

Beyond having difficulties with virtual reality technologies, electronic
art in general is troublesome for artists. Machine specific works become
inaccessible when the machine for which they were written becomes
obsolete. There are two solutions to this dilemma: 1) Artists can make
expendable and ephemeral works that have a very short life; or 2) Artists
can make works that exist in more than one medium simultaneously, in a
manner similar to Marcel Duchamp's LARGE GLASS, which exists as texts and
drawings in THE GREEN BOX, separate objects, paintings, photos, and
poems. In an electronic work of this nature, there is the electronic
copy, which is the original work as such, and all manner of other works
in other media that document or otherwise support the original.

Another virtual reality issue associated with the rate of frame display
is interactivity. Some researchers suggest limiting the complexity of the
graphic virtual world so that interactivity can be increased. To me, this
raises an issue. What is the value of interactivity?

Andrew Lippman defines interactivity as a conversation. He then adds the
quality of interruptibility, meaning that either party in the
conversation can interrupt the other at any time and determine the
direction the conversation takes. Most computer interactivity follows the
alternating model: you do something, then the computer does something,
etc. I suggest in ARCHAEOPTERYX that true interactivity in the computer
medium depends on some degree of intelligence in the computer. This can
be avoided successfully, when the art work uses the computer as a channel
for people-to-people interactivity, as in telecommunications, or it can
be achieved successfully, as when the computer is used for game playing;
in the case of a game, reality is sufficiently scaled down so the machine
can attain some degree of intelligence (as in chess playing computers)
and can be truly interactive.

I then focus on Archaeopteryx, my hardware interface for virtual reality
systems, from which this book takes its name. Archaeopteryx creates a
flight simulator interface for my 3D model of Leonardo da Vinci's
ornithopter. Archaeopteryx consists of the Globe, a spherical housing, in
which the Sled is suspended. The Sled, named after the Flexible Flyer
sled, consists of the Headset, Pedals and the Torsion Bar.

The Headset is made up of VPL EyePhones and trackers which cue an
inertial navigation system. Means for voice input is also provided.

The Pedals are a chain drive bicycle interface for the legs, which power
the wings.

The Torsion Bar is a sophisticated hand tracking device that is pressure
sensitive.

Archaeopteryx was developed because Leonardo's flying machine is much
different than a conventional aircraft, easily simulated on a computer
for a completely sedentary pilot. The differences are that in Leonardo's
machine 1) the pilot's muscle provides flight power, rather than a jet or
rocket engine; 2) Leonardo's machine uses no instrumentation; and 3)
unlike most airplanes, which have cockpit canopies, or noses, in the
ornithopter, the pilot's head is the foremost object.

In spite of these differences, the two traditional metaphors for user
navigation in virtual reality (usually called "flying") are applicable to
Archaeopteryx. In the airplane metaphor, straight ahead is a defined
direction. Any other direction pointed towards is banking, and causes the
world to rotate around the user. In the hummingbird metaphor, changes of
direction do not affect visual orientation, only movement. Consequently,
I devised two different directional control systems for Archaeopteryx.
One, called the Strict Leonardo system, uses the airplane metaphor. In
it, directions are controlled by head tracking. The other, called the
Relaxed Leonardo system, uses the hummingbird metaphor, in which
directional control is located in the torsion bar. Trying these different
systems will determine which, in practice, is the most successful.

As my stay at Banff came to a close, I intensified my efforts to put my
ornithopter in a virtual environment. Since dreams of flying were central
to my understanding of the immersive virtual reality experience, I
designed an environment that embodied that understanding. I constructed
an array of 9 telephone poles, which stand for the obstructions to free
movement that usually appear in flying dreams.

Then, I let my imagination fly.

Dreams are solitary events. Virtual reality gives us the chance to create
environments in which dreams can be shared through telecommunications. I
planned a shared flying dream, using both Leonardo's flying machine
(which he often called the Great Swan) and Letatlin. I did an animation
of the networked environment with both ornithopters flying through the
phone poles in a collision-avoidance game. This animation pointed out to
me the difference between immersive virtual reality and 3rd person
virtual reality (a term coined by Garry Beirne), in which the user sees
himself. It also suggested the possibility of using 3rd person virtual
reality to simulate shock during a crash or accident.

Later, I did an inclusive animation of both ornithopters flying through
the phone poles. The viewer of the animation sees the environment from
the point of view of the pilot of the Great Swan, during the collision-
avoidance game. The animation runs at 30 frames a second. Because of the
violence of the movement in it, questions are raised about whether 30
frames a second is what is needed to make the virtual reality experience
believable.

I conceive of virtual reality technology as a time travel device. I
therefore constructed two environments, linked to the phone pole
environment, that represent ages of great achievement in the arts, times
and places outside our own time that I have always wanted to visit. 16th
century Italy is represented by an environment based on the background of
a fresco by Perugino. It is primarily a fly-through environment.

I also constructed an interactive environment. 8th century Tikal, a Mayan
city, is represented by my version of the plaza of Temples I and II, with
the ball court, complete with giant rubber ball. Pilots can land their
ornithopters and engage in the ancient Mayan ball game as we now know
they played it: to the death. To each other, the pilots will appear like
Mayan athlete-kings, complete with jaguar skins and quetzal plumes.

As is typical with artists working with young technologies, my ideas were
too large for the Sense8 Virtual Reality Development System. I eventually
was able to build a virtual sculpture. The Great Swan, without its wings,
is suspended in the array of phone poles. Because the Great Swan has no
visible support, because it defies gravity, it embodies a minimalist
approach to virtual reality, rather than an interactive approach. This
sculpture, THE FLYING DREAM, caused me to see the congruence between my
experience constructing it and the underlying cultural and mythical
values we share in our dreams of flying.
_____________________
Hi, Leah--Please tell us about yourself, what's going on where you
are, etc.

--Fred Truck, ACEN