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Interactive Project: Sidewalks

The Story World

Sidewalks is a virtual reality film that places the user in the body of a man on his way home from work, and offers  the user glimpses of the lives of some of the strangers they will pass on the street.

In Sidewalks, the user in paced in a 360 degree virtual reality city, and will take the role of a man going home after work. Along the way, the user will see, but will not interact with, many people going about their day. Some of these individuals will have short videos associated with them that the user will see if he or she looks at them, giving the user a glimpse at the stranger’s life, and showing them that everybody is a person, with lives that exist independently of the user.

The film begins with the user choosing a method of getting home. Directly ahead of them will be the city streets, which will prompt the user to walk home, to their left will be their friend with her car, which will prompt the user to get a lift home, and to their right will be the city bus stopping at the bus stop, which will prompt the user to take the bus home. Each path will offer the user with a unique environment and a different set of people to cross paths with. This will give the film an intrinsic replay value, as the user will want to experience each path, to see how the experience differs. The film’s short run time, of around 5 minutes, will make it so the user does not feel bad about going back for a new experience. Below is a flowchart of the events. 

The reason for the film, however, is in the glimpses into the strangers’ lives. Some of the people that the user will pass on their way home will have videos accompanied to them that will plunge the user into a, brief, new environment, if the user looks directly at them. These new environments will showcase to the user a moment in the stranger’s life. And these moments will be no more than just that: moments in their lives. They will not attempt to develop the character of the person, they will not attempt to explain or justify their circumstance, and they will certainly not attempt to create an overarching story between all of the other glimpses. The bus driver trying to return his broken DVD player, or a fireman ordering a pizza will be the extent of the user’s visit in their lives. They will all act independently of the others; they will seem completely inconsequential and trivial. And that’s how they should be. The user will likely become confused, or even frustrated; the user will try to find the meaning behind the glimpses; they will try to find how they all connect for the user. And this is what the film is trying to dispel: the fact that these people must exist to serve a purpose for the user. The piece aims to convey to the user that everyone, everyone the user sees, is a person, with their own wants, and experiences, and lives: that people can exist independently of the user. And this, too, brings with it a factor of replayability, with the user coming back to try and find glimpses that they may have missed, trying to find a way to make the clips fit together and discover some hidden meaning. A meaning that they’ll never find.

 The Architecture

Sidewalks is a virtual reality film that immerses the user in a 360 degree world, and gives them full control over what they look at. The film will use the perspective of the user within the virtual reality, along with motion tracking of the direction that the user is facing as its main narrative driver. As the piece begins the user will be able to choose which path they will take within the film depending on what method of transportation they are looking at. This will use eye-tracking software to determine what the user is looking at. The film will always start the same, but will diverge into each path depending on where the film detects the user is looking, and will converge into the same ending. This will work to take full advantage of the first-person perspective the user is given with the virtual reality headset, and will further immerse them in the experience, as there will be no pop-up menus or controllers that the user will have to deal with to make their choice: it will all happen seamlessly through where they are looking, as it would in real life.

The film will also use stereo sound in order to create a more realistic, immersive experience for the user. As they go through this city they’ll hear the sounds they’d normally hear: the engines of cars and buses, the sound of people chatting, a construction project. And they’ll hear them happening all around them, giving the user the impression that they’re somewhere ; they’ll hear a dog bark behind them, and a woman laugh to their right, and they’ll look, and they’ll feel like it’s real The film will play out the path that the user has chosen, and the user will be free to look around wherever they please. This will, again, work to immerse the user in the film, as they will not merely be a static remnant, they will have a choice in what they see, as they would in real life. As they progress through the film the user will encounter many different people, with some of them adding to the experience of the film. Some of the strangers will have their own short clips, of around 10 seconds or less, associated with them that the user will see if the film detects they are directly looking at these people. The user’s environment will then transform into the moment in the stranger’s life, with the user still given full 360 degree control over what they look at. If the user, for instance, looks at the young man cleaning the tables of  a restaurant, they will be taken to an altar, in a garden, and see the man dancing on his wedding night, and they’ll see the guests, and hear the music, and they’ll be returned to the street walking home as quickly as they left. The film may become somewhat of game-like experience for the user, as they try and find out which of the stranger’s will have these moments that they can witness. And they’ll hopefully retain the thought that they should look at others more often, and see them as people with their own lives and experiences.

 The Process

I wanted my piece to use the mundane and create a higher meaning from it. This a concurrent theme in my work, and I wanted to continue to progress it with my interactive piece. This style is heavily influenced by satirical works like Catch-22 by Joseph Heller and the Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. I was inspired when I was walking down St-Catherine’s street and I began to wonder about all the strangers that were passing me by, and how they all had their own lives going on despite everything that I find important to me. It occurred to me that everyone I passed had their own troubles, and their own problems, and their own joys. But beyond that, I realized that they must also have just ordinary things happen to them as well. Merely reducing them to the major things of their lives would be the same as not considering them at all, so I wanted to remind the audience that everyone goes through ordinary, mundane things just as they do. I created a mood board for this idea before I began to write about it, and I came up with a focus on the city environment that I want in the piece because this is where you encounter the most amount of people and don’t really think about it. I also wanted to put an emphasis on the modes of transport that the user could interact with. 

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Network Art

Mail Art

Mail art is an early form of network art. It initially developed out of the Fluxus movement. It is about sending artful things. It is a creative communication that shows global culture. Chain mail originated in mail art, and would continue to show its influence in the internet age with email chains. Mail art became a global phenomenon, with artists receiving artworks from all parts of the world. “There is no longer a global art center” . 

Internet Art

Possible because of expanding technologies. Based on spreading a message that is political or social using human interactions. It tries to deliver an aesthetic experience using the internet. Draws the user into some sort of  interaction with the work of art. Has shifted to the fear of human relations. Artists began using networks that would become the internet to share their work with each other. Eventually, the newness and awe of this new technology wore off, and artists began to see the negative aspects of it. These newfound criticism would find themselves reflected in their work. 

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Museum Visit

Today we visited the Death of the Web exhibit at the Eastern Bloc. I had never been tot hat part of town, so just getting there was an interesting experience for me, as I got to see a new part of the city that I live in. The first thing I saw was the Project Eva Installation. This was my favourite piece of the exhibit, even though I barely used it. It was definitely the most attention grabbing piece of the exhibit, with its bright lights, fast movement and strange sounds. It was also the most interactive piece. The user sits in the installation, and mirrors rotate around them at increasing speeds. From what I understand, the piece is supposed to speak on how we live in a somewhat narcissistic society where we are always surrounded by and obsessed with photos of ourselves. I had to leave it pretty early as I was becoming dizzy, which I guess I would consider a downside of the installation as it alienates a portion of the audience who can’t endure that much spinning.

The other pieces didn’t really interest me very much. There was the Momento Vastum painting which looked alright, but didn’t seem too groundbreaking or interesting to me. 

I found the concept for Memoires Eteintes 3, the fact that it was supposed to be like an archaeological site for future civilizations. I am very interested in archaeology, so I found this to be quite amusing. However, I found it to be lacking in depth, as all it featured was some screens and videos. I feel like the artist could have thought more deeply of what could be representative of our internet age. I also didn’t find this piece to be very interactive, other than the fact that the viewer can walk around in it. 

Next was BPM 37093 which I didn’t really like at all. I found the concept to be alright: an existential look at our impermanence. However, the video was rather boring to me with it seeming like a simple loop, and I didn’t find the animation style to be too appealing. I am a big fan of animation, but the animation style and execution didn’t seem to inspired. 

I didn’t have time to try out infinitisme.com Forever a Prototype, as there was always someone using it when I passed by. However, it did seem to be interactive, and I found the atmosphere of the room to be quite interesting. It was crowded, and dark. It seemed to fit the mood of “The death of the web”. 

I found our visit to the lab section of the Eastern Bloc to be quite enlightening. It was cool to see the environment that people work in, and all the different tools and machines that they use to dot heir work. 

Overall, I found the trip to be quite fun. I enjoyed being exposed to a new part of town, in a studio that I had never been in and getting to see where the artists work. However, I don’t think the exhibit was for me. I don’t believe my tastes aligned with that of the artists. 

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Proposal

i will be doing my presentation on Marnix de Nijs. He is a Dutch artist who uses technology to create interactive art pieces that play with the users perception of image, sound and spacial awareness. He was born in the Netherlands in 1970. He studied sculpture at the Arnhem Institute for the Arts from 1988-1992. His works have been feature in festivals and exhibits across the world. 

He uses different technologies in order to interact with each particular sense. For some of his work, he will use a treadmill type of instrument to allow the user to feel like they are walking through the piece. In another he has them walking in a digital environment that changes depending on what direction they are walking in. In another work, he interacts with the users sight by setting up a tunnel of sorts that has images projected along its walls to stimulate the users peripheral vision. 

His work explores the profound impact rapidly increasing technology has on our culture and perception. He believes that technology has the power to change our culture dramatically, and he expresses this in his work. 

His work reminds of other works we have seen in class that use the the body to interact with technology. It also reminds me of the work we shown at the beginning of the class of the Turcott Interchange, because it shows the omnipresence of something in our society.

My presentation will feature the following topics:

De Nijs’ use of the urban landscape in his work

De Nijs’ use of sound in his work

How De Nijs work interacts with his audience using physical movement and the different environments in which he has his audience move.

How De Nijs work comments on our technological society. 

Bibliography 

 http://www.li-ma.nl/site/catalogue/agent/marnix-de-nijs/5993

http://www.marnixdenijs.nl/

http://v2.nl/archive/people/marnix-de-nijs

https://vimeo.com/user6199244

To find my information I began by searching his name to get a broad sense of his work. I then searched for Marnix De Nijs society to learn how his work reflected society. I then searched his name with the different senses that his work manipulated such as movement, sight, and sound. 

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Class 2: Mind Map

Today, we spent most of the class doing presentations for interactive art pieces we found. I found the diverse subjects people found to be quite interesting, as it showed how vast and boundless the medium of interactive art can be. There really doesn’t seem to be any rigid definition can, or has to, be. I find this quite refreshing as most art will at least stay within its own medium, whereas interactive art spans many forms. I presented an interactive virtual reality film.

We then read a text on the different types of interactivity, with the main forms being describe as “Interactivity as Product” and “Interactivity as Process”. I found this article to be quite confusing as it overloaded me with technical information that was unfamiliar to me. I was able to extract some understanding however which I applied to the mind map that we had constructed afterwards. We created two separate lines, one for interaction between people, and one with interaction between a person and a computer. The computer is related to design, programming and glitches. Interaction between people is social, and is related to communication and conflict.

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Introduction Class

Wednesday, January 18th, 2017

Today, we had our first class for Interactive Arts, and I wasn’t sure what to expect from it. I learned that we would be learning about different types of interactive arts and artists — as the course title suggests — but we wouldn’t be doing any production of interactive arts. We were presented a piece of interactive art involving the Turcot Interchange, and I thought the images we were shown of it to be quite beautiful. The way they were arranged within the piece illustrated how powerful and overbearing it is. Perhaps this was used to emphasize the metaphor of the “modern cathedral” that was discussed in class.  We also watched a video on brain synapses and how the human brain develops as a child. I found the fact that children’s brains develop much faster than adults, and that an adults brain is very much influenced by the way that they are conditioned as a child. However, I felt the video quickly became cliché as it tried very hard to end with some motivational call to arms (accompanied with images of fireworks and sunrises) instead of being purely educational.