RE: [-empyre-] multi-perspectival / cultural hegemony of space

[Adam Nash <adam@yamanakanash.net>]

This is starting to get very interesting! Unfortunately, I am what I call a 
'selfish artist' (others have less kind words for it),ie, I'm in it for my 
own self, like a diary. So, I can't contribute much to this discussion on 
the science/maths side of things, but I do have a few soulful reactions 
which may be of use in a different way.

> the geometry of the universe in some cosmologies is supposed to be 
> non-euclidean. in the big
> bang theory, there's an origin point to the universe, the beginning of 
> time, and the universe is
> supposed to be an expanding four-dimensional sphere.

I thought scientists generally accepted there are 9 dimensions? I'm asking, 
not stating. Also, based on my very rudimentary understanding of a single 
article in Scientific American, don't quantum physicists now talk about 
'our' big bang, rather than 'the' big bang because they have accepted that 
there are an infinite number of parallel universes? I imagine that there 
are a lot of possibilities in infinity...

> PS: Here is a fascinating 'space' by France's Frédéric Durieu:
> http://www.lecielestbleu.com/media/oeilcomplexframe.htm . The nature of 
> this space is discussed
> in http://turbulence.org/curators/Paris/durieuenglish.htm . To make a long 
> story short, this
> piece by Durieu called "Oeil Complex" is using a mapping of 1/(a+bi), ie, 
> is using imaginary
> numbers.

Lovely piece, I'm really looking forward to checking out the rest of his work.

John wrote:
> its use, by its mathematical nature, is
> restricted to a euclidean spatial representation regardless how much one
> tries to confound that space

Yes, that is exactly what I meant when I initially said that the renderer 
is trapped within a cartesian world view, and I find it interesting to play 
around with what you call the 'machine's understanding' - one of the things 
I find most rewarding about working with computers is telling them to do 
things they have not been programmed to consider. I love the, often quite 
startling, glitches that result when you do some 'physically impossible' 
geometry in a 3D program - they freak out! They don't say "that is not 
possible within the conceptual framework of space i've been designed to 
interpret, let's talk about it", they render it anyway! And often it looks 
wonderful. As Melinda has often said here and elsewhere, she likes to show 
the seams.

John wrote:
> humans have a much harder time "believing" in a space
> that does not equate to the one we walk around in every day

Some humans do, some humans don't. Certainly I've never considered the 
'space' we walk around in to be definitive - how do I know that you, or 
anyone else, is perceiving it the same way? What about blind people? 
Children? What about people from non-european traditions? I know in a very 
general way, for example, that Australian Aborigines have what to us is a 
totally psychedelic and incredibly complex perception of space and time.

I would really like to hear more about the Chinese landscapists that Alan 
mentions and also about Analytical Cubism as mentioned in Simon's paper. Is 
this similar to the point that has been made elsewhere that the 
introduction of switchable viewpoints in games etc is a new development, 
even though they are just a series of camera views, and aren't rendered 
simultaneously as I gather is the case with the Chinese landscapists and 
Analytical Cubists?

 But this brings it to the point that I clumsily tried to make in my 
introduction, which is that I'm not interested at all in how web3D can be 
used to represent the physical world, or visual perceptions thereof. I'm 
interested in the 3D medium itself, which, although it is clearly based on 
the cartesian paradigm, does a piss poor job of representing it, let's be 
honest :-) I much prefer exploring the properties of the space itself - 
there is no gravity unless you assign it, no up or down unless you assign 
it, no here or there unless you assign it, and so on. Of course when it is 
rendered to the screen it attempts to do it in conformance with the 
cartesian framework, but then it goes and does it in a 2D space, which is 
just as unrelated to the space we walk around in isn't it?

Adam