Abstract

Keywords: Virtual Reality experience, virtual heritage, photogrammetry, immersive media, digital heritage representation, glitch, ambisonic

In this paper, we outline how we have embraced the unique aesthetics of purposefully flawed photogrammetry and ambisonic sound to provide an impressionistic experience for a virtual heritage application. Over the last decade, photogrammetry has become particularly useful for 3D reconstruction in the context of virtual heritage applications. Although even inexperienced users can achieve impressive results, flawed reconstructions still occur when, for example insufficient data is being provided. Also, the capture of non-static objects, such as plants, presents manifold challenges. Usually, one would discard such imperfect reconstruction, but arguably such glitches embody a certain aesthetic, by telling a different story.

• Benjamin Seide, Associate Professor – Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), educator, researcher and media artist, lives in Singapore and Berlin and researches in the field of animation and immersive media. In the 1990s, Seide shot his first interactive 360° film with a self-developed camera and explored representations in virtual space in his work “Paramatrix”. His work as a visual effects artist from the 2000s contributed to Art House and Hollywood films, including Wim Wender’s “Don’t Come Knocking”, Roman Polanski’s “Oliver Twist” and Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo”. 2009–2013 Seide lived and worked in Shanghai and created the award-winning immersive experience of the General Motors World Expo pavilion. Currently his projects investigate artistic interpretation of cultural
  and film heritage in immersive media, including the full-dome installation “Fellini: Circus of Light” and “The Spirit of Pontianak”, a VR installation of the lost horror film “Pontianak” from 1958.
• Ross Adrian Williams, Assistant Professor – Doctor of Musical Arts – Nanyang Technological University (Singapore). Australian composer/sound designer Ross Adrian Williams has written music and designed sound across a range of styles for theatre, feature film, concert hall, dance, museum installation, VR and interactive media. His works have been performed internationally by groups such as the West Australian Youth and Symphony Orchestras and the Australian String Quartet, his music and sound design for award winning abstract, documentary and narrative films have been shown in festivals around the world. He holds a BMus (honours) from the University of Western Australia and a Masters and Doctorate in Musical Arts from Rice University, Texas, USA. As an Assistant Professor of Sound Design at the School of Art, Design and Media (NTU) his research interests range from implementation of audio stimuli to improve effectiveness of robotic motor training and improving the detection of volcanic events in infrasound to multichannel sound design for experimental film.
• Elke Reinhuber, PhD, Assistant Professor – Nanyang Technological University (Singapore). The German media artist, researcher and educator teaches currently at the School of Art, Design and Media at NTU Singapore as Assistant Professor for Expanded Photography. She holds a PhD from COFA/UNSW, Sydney for her exploration on choice, decision making and counterfactual thinking in media arts. Her interest in immersive representations of architectural cultural heritage via digital media started in the early days of laser scanning and panoramic imaging with QuickTime VR for web and interactive museum installations. Projects reaching from early Coptic to medieval and renaissance churches in Egypt, Germany or Mexico were a starting point for her artworks which add a narrative to historical or architecturally relevant sites. Her most recent pieces are closely connected to the rapidly changing city state of Singapore, where her award-winning stereoscopic video “Venomenon” was realized. Her artistic research was presented internationally, at conferences, exhibitions, group shows, festivals and biennials.

Full text (PDF) p. 291-296