The Post-Screen Through Virtual Reality, Holograms and Light Projections

Screens are ubiquitous today. They display information; present image worlds; are portable; connect to mobile networks; mesmerize. However, contemporary screen media also seek to eliminate the presence of the screen and the visibilities of its boundaries. As what is image becomes increasingly indistinguishable against the viewer’s actual surroundings, this unsettling prompts re-examination about not only what is the screen, but also how the screen demarcates and what it stands for in relation to our understanding of our realities in, outside and against images. Through case studies drawn from three media technologies – Virtual Reality; holograms; and light projections – this book develops new theories of the surfaces on and spaces in which images are displayed today, interrogating critical lines between art and life; virtuality and actuality; truth and lies. What we have today is not just the contestation of the real against illusion or the unreal, but the disappearance itself of difference and a gluttony of the unreal which both connect up to current politics of distorted truth values and corrupted terms of information. The Post-Screen Through Virtual Reality, Holograms and Light Projections: Where Screen Boundaries Lie is thus about not only where the image’s borders and demarcations are established, but also the screen boundary as the instrumentation of today’s intense virtualizations that do not tell the truth. In all this, a new imagination for images emerges, with a new space for cultures of presence and absence, definitions of object and representation, and understandings of dis- and re-placement – the post-screen

Art reshaping space

In the attempt to create interactive architectural space, biomorphic design principles and theories have been applied to develop forms derived from nature. The experience of a space is developed through the use of patterns and surfaces, which have historical importance in architecture and design. Patterns have created unique identities for space throughout history, contributing to the perception and interactive nature of space. Therefore, this use of pattern develops a variety of different applications in the field of architecture; in this case it is the design and development of a wall used for the creation of boundaries within a space through the pattern's articulation of surfaces. These surfaces create a physical entity within a space, primarily forming the perception of limits that make up the wall system by defining two or more distinct spaces within the area. The biomorphic design of the wall system integrates the uses of forms and patterns found in nature with the inherent human attraction to natural elements. Evidence supporting human affinity for nature uncovers features of natural forms that are both stimulating and beneficial to the user. The visually interactive qualities of the wall system will provide spatial cues that influence the perception and resulting behavior within the environment

Proceedings of the Augmented VIsual Display (AVID) Research Workshop

The papers, abstracts, and presentations were presented at a three day workshop focused on sensor modeling and simulation, and image enhancement, processing, and fusion. The technical sessions emphasized how sensor technology can be used to create visual imagery adequate for aircraft control and operations. Participants from industry, government, and academic laboratories contributed to panels on Sensor Systems, Sensor Modeling, Sensor Fusion, Image Processing (Computer and Human Vision), and Image Evaluation and Metrics

Visibilities and Invisibilities of Wonder: A Practice-Led Exploration of Optical Image Systems

This interdisciplinary practice-led project began with two investigations, both pivoting around the central material of glass. It explored whether glass, with its unique logistics of perception and ability to render invisible phenomena visible, could make visible an imperceptible process of slow change. It also endeavoured to understand how glass, in transporting its image-light across space and time evokes the experience of wonder. These two strands of enquiry were brought together through the research and development of my optical image systems, which serve as perceptual tools for exploring wonder and time. What initially began as an experience of observing slow changes in nature, transformed into a wider consideration of critical wonder, time and visibility. Critical sensibility became fundamental to my explorations of the materiality of wonder, but also crucial for the generation of wonder was a momentary interruption of this criticality by means of the imperceptible and immaterial transfer of light. My hybrid devices incorporate a wide range of old and new technologies, spanning from sixteenth century optical objects of natural magic to contemporary electronics and digital fabrication processes. I relate my efforts to the work of contemporary interdisciplinary artists Adam Brown, Attila Csorgo, Julien Maire and Olafur Eliasson and discuss specific works by Jan Dibbets, Johannes Vermeer and Anthony McCall with reference to visual strategies for directing our attention to the invisible. Historians, philosophers, theorists and a sixteenth century natural magician helped establish the framework for the development of my optical systems. Giovanni Battista Della Porta, Kate Warren, Tom Gunning and Jason Leddington informed my investigations into natural magic and wonder through their various practical and theoretical approaches; and Charles-Emile Reynaud, Jonathan Crary, Hans Jonas, Paul Virilio, Henri Bergson, Mary Ann Doane and Charlie Gere contributed to the framing of my investigations into time, materiality and visibility. The projected image systems I created, 'Hollow Lens' , 'Ghost in the Machine' and 'Object-Image', bring the visible and invisible, and material, digital and virtual into service as a means of evoking wonder and visualising time

The Post-Screen Through Virtual Reality, Holograms and Light Projections

Screens are ubiquitous today. They display information; present image worlds; are portable; connect to mobile networks; mesmerize. However, contemporary screen media also seek to eliminate the presence of the screen and the visibilities of its boundaries. As what is image becomes increasingly indistinguishable against the viewer’s actual surroundings, this unsettling prompts re-examination about not only what is the screen, but also how the screen demarcates and what it stands for in relation to our understanding of our realities in, outside and against images. Through case studies drawn from three media technologies – Virtual Reality; holograms; and light projections – this book develops new theories of the surfaces on and spaces in which images are displayed today, interrogating critical lines between art and life; virtuality and actuality; truth and lies. What we have today is not just the contestation of the real against illusion or the unreal, but the disappearance itself of difference and a gluttony of the unreal which both connect up to current politics of distorted truth values and corrupted terms of information. The Post-Screen Through Virtual Reality, Holograms and Light Projections: Where Screen Boundaries Lie is thus about not only where the image’s borders and demarcations are established, but also the screen boundary as the instrumentation of today’s intense virtualizations that do not tell the truth. In all this, a new imagination for images emerges, with a new space for cultures of presence and absence, definitions of object and representation, and understandings of dis- and re-placement – the post-screen

The Integration of Digital Technologies into Designer-Maker Practice: a Study of Access, Attitudes and Implications

This research is a focused investigation of the use of digital production technologies by UK designer-makers. The Critical and Contextual Review begins by examining what is known about the UK designer-maker sector. It considers how making practices relate to history and theories of craft, exploring meanings of key concepts such as ‘skill’ and ‘productive autonomy’. It reviews contemporary digital craft practice, identifying it as a genre and examines both digital economy and digital tool-use trends, relating to craft. The methodology Chapter 3 explains how the pragmatic philosophical approach taken justifies the focus on investigations of experiential practice and the specific mixed methods adopted. A series of experiential case studies looking at emergent practice is analysed using grounded theory techniques and concludes that in using digital tools the maker’s vision is the animating force in an inherently collective endeavour. This chapter is followed by an in-depth practicebased investigation looking specifically at the collaborative potential facilitated by digital possibilities. Chapter 6 presents an analysis of professional views based on interviews that probe the range and extent of technical and creative collaborations. At each stage of the research a reflective enquiry points towards the next step and provides successive iterations of evidence. The thesis that emerges from evidence is the contribution to knowledge of this research. It is that a cross-fertilisation between craft and digital technologies produces a hybrid networked practice that can amount to a new type of technology-enabled and networked craft – Technepractice – in which ‘negotiated collective engagement’ is the driving characteristic. This presents a fundamental challenge to the constructed authenticity of productive autonomy in 20th century studio craft practice. The animation of collective resources, from exteriorised skill embedded in technology to the expertise of technicians and machine operators and the use of digital data sources, requires a re-evaluation of the location and meaning of skill in digital craft practice. A full account of the digital ‘proposition’ for craft, both the opportunities and threats, places digital craft in the context of other digital creative industries and explores possibilities for extending practice from collaborations to digital business models

Internet Explorer: The Creative Administration of Digital Geography

This thesis is a creative response to the widespread uptake of Google Maps, Earth and Street View and their impact on the future of landscape as a cultural concept. ‘Creative administration’ is introduced as an idiosyncratic system for collecting and interpreting ideas about landscape. The artist’s virtual journeys through digital landscapes are revealed in a series of miniature paintings. Cultural geography contextualises these artworks and other artists’ responses within a broader understanding of contemporary landscape

Irradiated Landscapes: Journey to Prospect Cottage

How does one map a memory of a place, a fragment of time, in a way that is as evocative and vivid as the initial experience? When we prospect a landscape, we witness it as it is now; light and shadow define it, complete with its current solar exposure, humidity and temperature. As we then move through the landscape our brains process this information, leading us to perceive something entirely new. Our memory of that perception is also rewritten each time we recall it. Intended as a process of design research – based at the late Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage on Dungeness beach in Kent, UK – this essay attempts to capture the fluidity of these perceived experiences and freeze them into sited mappings, unique to the temporal and climatic experience of the observer. Centered on the production of digitally-crafted ‘perceptual cartographies’, which are designed/generated from the site, it presents an exploration into ways of seeing architecture and landscape. In doing so, the essay calls for the recording of sites and designs in which emotional responses – induced by light – leave traces of the spaces in the individuals who visit them, creating a temporally sensitive and deeply perceptual experience of that place