Part Zero: The Architecture _o.2 Special Reports T_Visionarium Is an immersive, Interactive, multi-modal environment made of inflatable fabric. By enabling view- ers to immerse themselves in virtual modalities, it explo- res the expressive potential of transcriptive as opposed to conventional interactive narrative. Navigation through the data sets dramatizes the televisual information archi- ved inT_Visionarium's database. This strategy allows viewers to experience the sense of a wholly personalized authorship. Dennis Del Favero has had numerous solo shows and has Jeffrey Shaw has pioneered the use of interactivity and participated in various major international exhibitions, virtuality in his many art installations since the late 1960s. including Miinchner Stadmuseum, Neue Gaierie Graz, His works have been exhibited worldwide at major mu- Sprengel Museum Hannover, ZKM I Center for Art and seums and festivals. From 1991-2003 he was director of Media Karlsruhe and many more. He holds an Australian the Institute for Visual Media at the ZKM I Center for Art Research Council QEII Fellowship and is co-founder and and Media Karlsruhe, Germany. Since 2003, he has been co-director of the Center for Interactive Cinema Research founding co-director of the Center of Interactive Cinema (iCinema) at the University of NSW and Artist-in-Resi- Research (iCinema) at the University of New South Wales, dence at ZKM. Sydney, Australia. Neil Brown is a leading researcher in the areas of cognitive Peter Weibel was appointed professor of visual media art theory of art, creativity and art education and a member at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna in 1984. He was of the Center for Cognitive Issues in the Arts (CCIT) at head of the digital arts laboratory of the Media Depart- the University of Bristol, UK. Professor Brown's research ment of NY University from 1984-1989, and founded is centered on two projects. The first aims at establishing the Institute of New Media at the Academy of Fine Arts, theoretical grounds for a philosophically neutral ontology Frankfurt/M in 1989. From 1986-1995, he was artistic of the artifact. The second seeks empirical evidence for the consultant and later artistic director of the Ars Flectronica way in which children and adults' vernacular theory of art in Finz, and from 1993-1999 curator at the Neue Cialerie conditions their understanding of works and informs their am Fandesmuseum joanneum, Graz. He commissioned practice. the Austrian pavilions at the Venice Biennial from 1993- 1999. Since 1999, he has been Chair and CFG of the ZKM I Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe. DE""'S DEI FavfinDj nE4 Bpo PE^'EH |llE"bEL Part Zero: The Architecture _o.2 Special Reports 146 Del Favero, Brown, Shaw, Weibel: T_Visionan'um 147 Part Zero: The Architecture _o.2 Special Reports T_VISIONARIUM .TOWARDS A DIALOGIC fixed on a motorized pan-tilt apparatus CONCEPT OF DIGITAL NARRATIVE mounted on a tripod which projects tele- visual data onto the interior skin of the Concept of the Dialogic dome. The projection system is articulated to the tracking device so that viewers, by Currently the dominant position in aesthe- shifting their heads, move the large proj- tics conceptualizes narrative as mono- ected viewing window across the interior temporal or linear. The digital, by con- surface. This tracking device identifies trast, is conceptualized as a-temporal or the exact orientation of an individual non-linear. This monochronic explanation viewer's point of view, which in turn con- reduces narrative to a mono-temporal trols the orientation of the projector so process that fails to account for not only that it presents an image directly in front the potential of interactive digital narra- of where the viewer is looking. The audio- tive but also the workings of conventional visual data streams are virtually distrib- cinematic narrative itself. In contrast the uted over the entire surface of the dome, concepts of dialogic and transcriptive pro- so that the movement of the projection vide an understanding of narrative as a windows enables the viewer to navigate multi-temporal process operating beyond between these multi-modal data streams. the structuralist notions of linearity and The delivery software creates a spherical non-linearity. The dialogic refers to the distribution of all the televisual data by interactive multiplicity immanent within their real time texturing onto a virtual the digital, while the transcriptive de- polygonal model of the dome. In other scribes the cinematic capture and recon- words the stored televisual data sets are struction of multimodal forms of informa- physically mapped over the dome surface tion within virtual environments. Recently such that each data set is allocated a the authors explored these concepts as specific window grid on the dome's sur- a model for the production of interactive face. This enables viewers to navigate be- narrative by means of an experimental tween each data set by merely shifting study entitled T_Visionarium, Cinemas their point of view. This mapping strategy du Futur, Lille Cultural Capital, 2004. applies to both image and sound. T_Visionarium - Experimental Design Seamless transitions between discrete image and sound events are handled by T_Visionarium is an immersive, interact- specific design parameters of the audio- ive, multi-modal environment set within a visual delivery system. The acoustic deli- dome 12 m in diameter by 9 m in height very system is based on the use of RF made of inflatable fabric [see Fig. 21. It (radio frequency) cableless headphones, allows viewers to spatially navigate a tele- which each visitor wears while inside the visual database in virtual time. On entr- dome. Multiple audio channels are inter- ing the dome viewers place a magnetic actively mixed down for stereo RF deli- position tracking device, connected to very to all the headphones. The mixing cableless stereo headphones, on their of these channels is handled dynamically heads [Figs 1, 3]. By means of a remote in immediate relationship to the move- control interface, viewers are able to ment of the pan-tilt projection system select from a range of parameters which so that a fully spatialized sound-scape arrange the televisual database according can be defined inside the dome architec- to thematic categories such as "dialog" ture. This is directly linked to the distri- and "crowds." The projection system is bution of the visual content. The mixing 148 Del Favero, Brown, Shaw, Weibel:T_Visionarium of the audio, synchronized with the move- with the matrix interface and simulta- ment of the pan-tilt projection system, neous the movement of their heads and allows a fully spatialised soundscape projection window individual viewers origi- inside the dome to be synchronized with nate unique performances on behalf of a the distribution and experience of the larger viewing public of up to eighty per- visual content. These same satellite data sons. This strategy allows viewers to expe- streams are recorded onto a hard disc rience the sense of a wholly personalized system and sorted within a database. By authorship. To this extent the recombina- the application of a recombinatory soft- tory matrix produces a deeply interactive ware matrix, unprecedented narratives authorship, emergent in the encounter are reconfigured from this database by between the viewer and matrix in multi- the viewer. By means of their interaction temporal time. f »j. i' vie^ver^. b\ sintting then headb, move the pro- ectf-ci v\ihduv\ act cs'- the intenof skiii of the dome. 149 Part Zero: The Architecture _o.2 Special Reports T_Visionarium - Experimental Methodology tion window across the dome screen. Sele- cting the parameter "dialog," for exam- T_Visionahum, by enabling viewers to ple, ushers forth intersecting cascades of immerse themselves in virtual modalities, current affairs, sports, features, life style, explores the expressive potential of trans- historical, scientific, musical and anthro- criptive as opposed to conventional inter- pological episodes of "dialog" across active narrative. It allows new recombina- 48 channels, a multiplicity of languages, tory narrative content to be generated by numerous time zones, and a heterogeneity the viewer. Navigation through the data of cultures within the simultaneous time- sets dramatizes the televisual information frame of the visualization apparatus. archived in T_Visionarium's database. These data sets are reconstituted across The recombinatory matrix unravels these the interior skin of the dome under the convergences of multi-modal data at tem- converging impetus of viewer and matrix poral levels of intensity, archival density and are encountered as emerging multi- and extensiveness that only become recog- temporal events. Processing is animated nizable as they coalesce in the complex by the recombinatory parameters of the time projected across the dome. Thus, interactive software. It is based on recor- with changes to their point of view, vie- ded broadcasts from 48 global satellite wers activate a powerful navigational television channels recorded sequentially matrix that produces a directional flow in 30-minute intervals over a single 24 of information in which the expressive hour period. This data is post-processed meaning of the data is boundlessly trans- by the matrix in ways that hyperlink the cribed. The profoundly multi-temporal variegated data sets in virtual time to logic echoes the theoretical architecture form a large scale database. Based on implicit in digitized audio-visual data [2]. deep content authoring, which allows high This logic is imperceptible in convention- levels of semantic and abstract classifica- al viewing frameworks, which can only tion, the matrix sorts the data according recover time analogically by scanning to characteristics of language, movement, and juxtaposing whole fragments. At best, color, speech, composition, lighting and conventional viewing establishes symmet- pattern recognition as organized by iden- rical patterns of temporal resemblance tifiers originating as functional agencies among broadcast items that are based within a conceptual framework [i].