RE: [-empyre-] multi-perspectival

[Adam Nash <adam@yamanakanash.net>]

> whatever literal perspective we see from, we lack a new figurative 
> perspective unless it is new
> in our metaphysical space. the 3rd eye is invisible, is figurative, sees 
> the metaphysical space.

Indeed, and an articulation of this new (one suspects it is actually very 
old) figurative perspective in literal terms will result in, literally, a 
literal means for portraying/experiencing this figurative perspective. It 
is getting closer.

> had a chance to check out your "memory plains returning", adam. really 
> memorable and, again,

Thankyou, Jim, nice response (I've memorised it ;-)

> that link with (human) memory turns it into a kind of metaphysical space, 
> mainly, doesn't it?

I agree - to me, all and any technology used for art is fundamentally in 
the service of the metaphysical expression, but remember that I'm very much 
from the live performance tradition, so in that sense my work is possibly 
much less formal than is often expected of net artists. Memory Plains 
Returning is a personal reflection on a very painful journey I took over a 
number of years, and in its expression I hope as artist to tap into some 
commonality of experience amongst beholders - in this most corny of senses 
Web3D is no different from any other tool used in art, be it words or paint 
or photo-sensitive chemicals. But I do want to stress that, as much as I 
love Web3D as a medium, I don't think that the (literal) multiple 
viewpoints available menu-style to a Web3D beholder are anything other than 
a linear series of single point perspective views very analogous to edits 
in cinema. It's very telling that in many (but not all) 3D authoring 
programs these viewpoints are called cameras. Sure, you can change the 
field-of-view angle (defined in radians - one of the many endearingly 
arcane traits of vrml/x3d) to get really wiggy effects, and you could even 
embed multiple instances of the same world from different viewpoints in the 
same web page, but you will never transcend the confines of the cartesian 
perspective quite simply because the rendering paradigm of the software 
itself has been built from the ground up to strictly conform to those rules.

> i love the way that the cosmo player has that right-click menu, 
> particularly the "viewpoints"
> submenu. by the way, is it the case that any viewpoint is always reachable 
> from any other?

It is completely programmable by the artist/author (tellingly, there is 
*one* default viewpoint - anything else you have to put in explicitly). In 
Memory Plains Returning I used the simplest of all devices, known as 
Inlining, wherein the main file you access is simply a container file: 
it  calls the seven individual vrml files that comprise the seven 
movements, as well as a list of seven viewpoints looking at the respective 
3D vectors into which the files have been called. These 'inlined' files 
contain more detailed viewpoint configurations specific to themselves. This 
is combined with the "Level Of Detail" function of vrml wherein the user 
can only see/hear the Inlined file (and its attendant viewpoints) when they 
encroach within a certain radius of it.

> does the cosmo tech presuppose a connected space, in that sense?

This is a fascinating question. First let me make it clear that CosmoPlayer 
is a VRML browser, so when you talk about 'cosmo tech' you actually mean 
'VRML' (and just to confuse, VRML is an International Standard that is 
currently being evolved into its third incarnation, known as X3D - the X 
stands for eXtensible). VRML is actually based on co-inventor Mark Pesce's 
idea called Cyberspace Protocol, and this most definitely DOES presuppose a 
connected space that comprises the whole internet. Cyberspace Protocol is a 
way of mapping the 3D datasphere of all the connected computers in the 
world using concepts of 'grid' or 'distributed' computing, and the 
implications are quite astonishing. Pesce, being the Buckminster Fuller fan 
that he is, probably sees it as a way of achieving a consensual or communal 
intra-educational nirvana (let's hope it does :-), but being also a 
practical, open source computer programmer he is realising it as a quite 
simple "yes" in answer to your question "does it presuppose a connected 
space?". You can find out more about Cyberspace Protocol at:
http://www.webearth.org/~mpesce/cptell.html

> hopefully i will dream of some of the great 3d work i've seen tonight! 
> thank you!

Thanks for the enthusiasm - I know we all dream in 3D vision, but let me 
know if you hear sound in your dreams or at least if you can remember it.

Regards,
Adam