[ISEA2019] Poster: Yan Breuleux, James Partaik & Rémi Lapierre — Mapping_Me: a shared virtual environment of media archives controlled by a tangible interface

Poster Statement

Keywords: In-between, Altered Reality (VR/AR/MR)], Immersive soundscape, environmental storytelling, sound maps, virtual heritage, tangible media, Intangible heritage, new interfaces.

Abstract

“Mapping_me”, the title of this artistic research project is inspired by many questions: can archives constitute a conceptual map, a personality? Is the mapping of place through a particular viewpoint a form of self-portrait, a selfie? Are we not, through self-archiving processes, mapping not only the real but also the individual? This Work in Progress (WIP) is currently at the stage of its second iteration. The project Mapping_me consists of a multi-User virtual reality installation allowing the Users to navigate within spatialized and geolocalized visual and sound archives using an innovative tangible interface. Specifically, the installation consists of an augmented rotating chair as a physical interface to navigate through a metaverse of digital content incorporating photographs, panoramas, texts, sounds and photos-videos in Fulldome format. The system structure allows one to quickly integrate new content into the virtual environment. The tools developed allows to generate media footprints of places and spaces diffused within a shared space in a virtual reality context. The installation makes it possible to represent not only the spaces and places but also to transpose the urban and human atmospheres thus making it possible to propose a new experience of a place as a form of sensory amplification.

  • Yan Breuleux, Design (M.Sc.A), Music (Doctorate) is an associate professor at the NAD-UQAC (NAD, School of Digital Arts, Animation and Design, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi), Canada. He’s a researcher and practitioner in the field of visual-music for immersive display. For twenty years he has collaborated with musicians and composers to create multi-screen, panoramic, and fulldome pieces.
  • James Partaik is an associate professor and head of the digital arts sector at UQAC (Université du Québec à Chicoutimi), Canada. Artist, researcher, director of the research creation group Insertio, contributor to the innovative open-source project Wiring, Partaik also is a founding member of Avatar (Quebec) regarded in Canada as pioneers for audio and electronic art.

Full text (PDF) p. 648-649