Previous Exhibitions
Daniel Sandin - Dave Pape:
EVL: Alive on the Grid [ CAVE ]
1-6. September 2001.
The problem with virtual reality (VR) is that it is not easy to come into contact with it: it demands special machines, softwares, projectors and complementary body-gear, just as it is written in the Big Books, as in e.g., Neuromancer . The CAVE, which was developed in the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), is precisely this kind of meeting place that produces a high-level total- immersion experience via the collaboration of the most highly developed specialized equipment presently available.
Accordingly, the financial investment required is not minimal. Aside from the systems employed internally by industrial powers, such spaces are accessible to the general public in only two places in the entire world: the Museum of the Future at the Ars Electronica Center in Linz (Austria) and the ICC in Tokyo (Japan). The CAVE in and of itself is simply a location, which enables the sensory manifestations required for VR. There is a need for artists who design virtual reality based on the parameters of the CAVE. Consequently, VR is not homogenous, but always different, according to how the individual authors imagine it.
Dan Sandin and Dave Pape, Chicago media artists and co-developers of the CAVE, envision virtual reality as a particular matrix, as a grid. On the occasion of the 2001 Ars Electronica Festival, in a large-scale gesture of international collaboration, their work entitled EVL: Alive on the Grid will be presented in seven locations some of which are otherwise not open to the public.
The exhibition offers the viewer a lasting virtual-reality experience. The word "lasting", or "enduring", in this case is not a mere advertising slogan, but signifies that the constructed virtual environment continues to operate even after the viewer has physically left the exhibition space. The individual worlds coexist simultaneously in the CAVEs, or CAVE-like systems, installed at the various points on the globe. The visitors to the different locations can enter a common space, establish connections with one another and communicate, at the same time completing and transforming the virtual worlds.
The work can be penetrated at C3 Budapest with the aid of the three-dimensional stereo-projection and VR helmet between 10.00-19.00 1-6 September, with advance booking by telephone (488-7070) or by e-mail (grid@c3.hu). C3 Gallery, Budapest, I. Országház utca 9.
The description of the worlds visible from Saturday, 1 September can be found on the following site: http://dolinsky.fa.indiana.edu/ars/2001/apps/
Advice to the viewer:
The entire installation begins in a dressing room, which has a mirrored wall, and the visitor can choose a body for her/himself among the avatars placed on the shelves. From here, he arrives at the Confluxus, where he can select which world s/he would like to enter. The world called Excavation is the work of C3 guest Joseph Tremonti, while Looking for Water is that of Dan Sandin.
Project websites:
EVL project website (Electronic Visualization Laboratory, Chicago)
AEC project website (Ars Electronica Center, Linz)
Locations:
Ars Electronica Center, Linz
C3 Center for Culture & Communication, Budapest
Electronic Visualization Laboratory, University of Illinois, Chicago
Advanced Visualization Laboratory, Indiana University, H.R. Hope School of Fine Arts, University Information Technology Services, Bloomington
Interactive Institute - Tools for Creativity Studio, Uema, Sweden
Center for Computational Research and the Department of Media Study, State University of New York, Buffalo
V2 Lab, Rotterdam
