Re: [-empyre-] Learning - ?

["Melinda Rackham" <melinda@unsw.edu.au>]

steve wrote:
 > >(For now I'm looking to the act of learning from
> >others - not personal development. A person who
> >inspired you, is not enough, I'm asking about the
> >concrete application of knowledge.)

yeah steve,  im with adam here..
 you inspired me too and as well you me  helped in the application of
knowledge by passing on what you knew about vrml in a very accessable way..
gave me feedback.. etc.. same goes  for everyone elses work in this show.. i
am inspired, and appreciate and learn from other  aesthestics and technical
applications.. it  expands my 3d universe .. even if the work is not work i
could or want to make myself.. for example.. im completely unmusical and
sound illiterate.., but i had a great time playing with Przemeks and Edwards
Soundcubes..it sort of like 3d zen tetris, with beautiful ressonanant
sound..

it all adds to my experience.. when i have a conversation about 3d  like
the ones Adam mentioned..or we post to a list like some of the previous
empyre discussions the whole 3d theoretical and environment  which happens
in real time is altered, its always mutating and growing. each considered
post  moves it in different directions.. every keystroke shifts (virtual)
reality

however i also see 3d as really still in its infancy.., its hasnt really
been
properly weaned yet, its not resilliant enough to be easily part of
mainstram art/curtural practice.. for what ever reasons.. as most of what we
have been doing is still speculation.. ive only been doing it for 4 or so
years but as its an incredibly hard area to work in..it does feel
underappreciated and sometimes  a liitle stagnant.. but  i think this is a
hardware/software issue ratehr than a lack of creativity amongst artists..

i strongly disagree that work done now is the same as work done 7 yeras
ago.. i
think people are pushing the field in all sorts of different conceptual
ways.. the reason it looks similar is that it is still hedged by projectors,
moniters and keyboards  etc.. but i don't hear you complaining that
paintings still have frames  . at the  present time i see that as a
convention which one accepts and then you look for the differences and
subtlety within..
.. the 7 year time scale is too small to expect massive visual changes.. as
the technolgy isnt able to make the  shifts as apparent as they really are.

but  when   3d spills into other areas the navigation gets more
interresting,.there have been all sorts of methods..like Blast Theories foot
pad navigation  in Desert Rain -so you navigate via almost a skateboard, or
force feedback navigating, which is fun.., or if we go into large scale
installation things like Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mingnonneaus Plant
activated generational scape (i forget the name) where touching certain
biological plants in the installation area triggers plant growth on
screen.... (tho ist isnt strictly 3d its in the conceptual and achievable
ball park ) or of couse the infamous vest naviagtion of Osmose and
Ephemere....

but we are talking about mostly about small scale projection work ..and even
there an alternate mode of navation is  possible via sensors in a an
installation space so physical body movement will take you thorough the
space.... for example..Anne-Sarah Le Meur an artsit in France has a  VR
piece called  Into the Hollow Of Darkness, wher e nothing tangible is
represented - everything rests upon the power of the images, and the
reciprocity of the power the viewer has over the images. Abstract
representations move away form the viewers as they move towards them, the
viewer gradually learning that by becoming passive, motionless, they can
hold or pause the forms, or  "tame" them .  The outcome of this slow dance
viewing the artwork is to give the impression the forms are alive, even
looking back at you. Thats a different sort of naviagtion..
Or by eye and brain wave guided naviagtion like  in Brainscore -a great
networked virtual reality 3D performance produced by Slovenian artists Darij
Kreuh & Davide Grassi .., http://www.brainscore.org/first_page.html

but if you are sitting alone at home at you laptop and interacting.. it
still is framed the same way.. however  if 3d art were a multi billion
dollar market , like gameing..  which has a massive uptake.. and massive
number so people working on any one project as well.. including all the the
beta testers out there who help get commercial game sites up.  if gamers
wanted new interfaces or modes of naviagtion beside looking up lara crofts
bottom then it would be changing over night.. but the reality is gamers are
quiet happy to accept the frame -they liek the structure and  are immersed
in their game play so dont care..so there isnt a huge push ..

we artists on the oterh hand want to change everything including the frame..
but  we each have to almost reinvent the wheel  to make a interresting
difference in interface or naviagtion.. sad but true, it would be great if
we coudl share IP on projects, but i believe when most things are developed
they are done within a institutaional and university funding frame work, say
liek ZKM or ACMI or  that don't want to make the research and development
info availabe to any one else.. i coudl be worng, and it would be nice to be
wrong.. but if the bits of work that we build on and share coudl include
alternate intreface and navigation soft and hard ware,  like what happens
elsewahre in network art and opensource culture it may be a very different
senario.

> >Frankly, has anyone ever seen a good study done of the
> >web3D works produced in the past seven years?
> >Something that looks beyond a single person and tries
> >to compare and understand the vast array of work
> >that's been done?  I'd like the url
>
steve let it begin here :)

melinda