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

[Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>]

A few questions and comments here - first, I have Gibbons' Decline and
Fall of the Roman Empire, and the illustrations are Piranesi - the text
itself seems to employ similar convolutions and spaces. This goes with the
comment that a novel is immersive; literature, at least metaphorically,
can employ other spaces than the usual.

But a question here - when we're talking 3d in all of these cases, we're
not talking (or are we?) about 3d environments (i.e. lenticular screens,
glasses, etc.) - we're talking about flat display and 3d -> 2d projection.
I think this makes an enormous difference - it's nowhere near any sort of
virtual reality or realism, but is, in fact, the result of mediating
projecting apparati. Now why this matters, perhaps, is that there are
always issues of navigation if the work is interactive - and most of these
I've found clumsy, not intuitive, and not in any way orienting the body
towards the experience, since there's a learning curve obviously with
either mouse or joystick (sometimes keyboard). Further, there are the
usual issues of commercialism - my old VRML 1 something doesn't run
anymore, the current interfaces seem clumsy, etc.

I'd appreciate comments on this - how much is 3d work software-dependent
and corporate-dependent for viewing? to what extent is it 3d at all?

Apologies for going on naively here - Alan -=

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