Abstract

paper session Imagineering, Webcams, Correlation between Space

“Virtual Reality” and “webcams” are currently incompatible suppositions, placing sensory richness in opposition to liveness. Large immersive images, sent through a “narrow pipe” such as today’s Internet, must “accumulate” over time. Time artifacts result, since not everything can be transmitted at the same time.

Such time artifacts were explored using visual material from a previous art installation, filmed with a custom-built camera system, where such factors as frame rate, lens angles, and panning speed were known. Though the footage was prerecorded, it approximated what a live “VR webcam” could be.

Scenes of the same places at different times of day were combined in various ways to simulate “narrow pipe” time artifacts. Studies produced from this footage suggest that time artifacts, while reducing the verisimilitude of the imagery, can increase its density or activity. In such “hyper-real” images, “more” can “happen.” A “VR Webcam” is proposed.

• Michael Naimark, USA, is a producer, inventor, and scholar in the fields of virtual reality and new media art. Naimark was on the original design team for the MIT Media Laboratory in 1980 and was a founding member of the Atari Research Lab (1982), the Apple Multimedia Lab (1987), and Lucasfilm Interactive (now LucasArts, 1989). naimark.net 

Full text (PDF) p. 28-29