Brief Notes by John Peterson
Perry Hoberman, an artist specializing in unique installation
and performance works, spoke about two recent projects, the Virtual
Brewery and The Barcode Hotel.
The Virtual
Brewery was a recent project Perry did in conjunction with
Telepresence Research, a company that specializes in virtual reality
installations. The project, created for the Sapporo Brewing company
in Tokyo, was the highlight of a "Beer Museum" there.
The museum featured a number of displays about beer and brewing,
with the Virtual Brewery as the highlight.
The Virtual Brewery display featured a single FakeSpace boom
display, that one participant could use to control the display.
Other viewers could watch along by looking into a dozen or so
viewers displaying the same video and audio. A couple of museum
guides coordinate the activity.
When the display starts, the particpants are first led through
the gates of the "old" brewery (it used to be at the
site of the current museum). And into a control room where a virtual
guide gives a brief expanation of the scene. Then the particpant
with the FakeSpace display can choose one of four "tours"
featuring different steps of the brewing process.
Bar
Code Hotel is an interactive installation for multiple participants
(or guests). By covering an entire room with printed bar code
symbols, an environment is created in which every surface becomes
a responsive membrane, making up an immersive interface that can
be used simultaneously by a number of people to control and respond
to a projected real-time computer-generated stereoscopic three-dimensional
world.
An interesting footnote to Perry's talk. Perry
normally gives slide presentations of his work, the typical presentation
method for artists. However, a slide projector was nowhere to
be found in Apple's new hi-tech auditorium. Julian Gomez saved
the day by setting up a WWW browser on the big screen, so Perry
could show the audience his Web sites (see links above). It worked
great!
