Future Cinema

mobile nation reading for tomorrow (don’t worry about it)

Hi everyone – it’s come to my attention that Mobile Nation is difficult to access – I thought it was available via the online course pack, but it isn’t. If you haven’t been able to access the text yet, please know that it’s secondary to the Ibister. If you are one of the people who did read it, Mobile Nation is still very useful and hopefully you can share what you’ve read with others who did not have access to the text.
Looking forward to tomorrow!

Caitlin

Followup to Presentation on Lukas/Immersive Worlds – Presentation Slides

Hi all,

in case there are links in my presentation slides that you are interested in (that I didn’t include in the associated document), here is a link to a PDF version:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4men6mp1aivdy3l/_2017F_ImmersiveWorlds.pdf?dl=0

Sound Readings

Hi everyone…here are the two texts that I’ll be drawing upon for next week’s presentation – I’m sending them via a Wetransfer link, as the blog didn’t seem to want to upload them directly (blame it on the blog). I’d suggest reading the intro to the Labelle book, which provides a good overview of where he’s coming from, and chapter 4 in the Voegelin (Time and Space).

Link is here: https://we.tl/Jho4bJ0BBo

First 40 pages of Klein (or so)

As the title suggests:

https://eyemachines.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/vaticantovegas.pdf

—marko

Summary of The Immersive Worlds Handbook: Designing Theme Parks and Consumer Spaces

Here is my written summary, in advance of today’s presentation and discussion.  It includes the three questions I’ve proposed (bolded at the end of the document), to go along with the reading.

I’m having some difficulty figuring out how to post a PDF document here.  So instead, here is a link to the summary in Dropbox:

Summary of Reading

Documentary on Expo 67 @ The Royal

Perfect timing! The Royal, a downtown rep cinema, will be showing a documentary on Expo 67 during the first week of October. I don’t know anything more about the film aside from what’s on the theatre’s website, but it could be interesting for those of us who want another Expo fix.

http://newsite.theroyal.to/movies/expo-67-mission-impossible/

Tags: Expo 67

introducing Apple AR kit

iOS 11 introduces ARKit, a new framework that allows you to easily create unparalleled augmented reality experiences for iPhone and iPad.

Introducing AR kit

https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2017/602/

Immersense Developer Envisions Gaming Without Visuals (August 27, 2022)

Boston, MA – It was standing-room-only during ZeniMax Media’s keynote presentation at this weekend’s PAX East gaming conference at the Hynes Convention Center. After months of speculation, the Maryland media conglomerate formally announced its new VR gaming system, Immersense. The mix of excitement and apprehension amidst the crowd erupted into a chorus of awe and guffaws when lead developer Matt Hoffman confirmed rumours that Immersense would be the first multi-sensory VR system to deliberately exclude visual elements.

Hoffman began by recalling Edgar Allen Poe’s classic horror short story, “The Pit and the Pendulum”. When the tale’s protagonist first awakes, Hoffman recounted, “all he sees is darkness. He’s deprived of his primary means of experiencing the world – sight. Instead, he has to rely on his other senses: touch, sound, and smell. And through those, he makes sense of his environment.” The Immersense system, Hoffman explained, is designed to privilege senses often neglected or excluded entirely from the VR experience.

Demonstrated by Hoffman and an assistant, the Immersense system is an ensemble of wearable tech consisting of a closed helmet, vest, and gloves. Embedded in the helmet is a microventilation system to simulate the direction and temperature of air currents. The helmet also features omnidirectional THXcess headphone speakers, originally developed by LucasArts for the mobile edition of Star Wars: Episode XV. The vest is equipped with a hydrodynamic weight system (to mimic the pull of gravity in topographically uneven environments) and the Goodman Woofer subsonic array. The Goodman Woofer not only enhances acoustic tactility, Hoffman said, but “enables users to experience seismic events, which feature in specific gameplay scenarios.” Meanwhile, the gloves are constructed of nanobead smart fabric, which mimics a variety of textures – from rocky grit to leathery smoothness – in microscopic detail. The gloves even provide resistance to the user’s hand when they “grip” an object during gameplay.

A final feature, integrated throughout the entire ensemble, is a microaqueduct system that simulates the wetness or dryness of specific objects and the game’s overall climate. “Whether you’re striding across sand dunes or scrambling up a sodden rainforest hillside,” Hoffman elaborated, “you’ll feel it.” Hoffman was less informative about how smell would feature in Immersense gameplay, saying only that ZeniMax had partnered with NYU’s Rinberg Lab to help them “curate unparalleled olfactory simulations.”

The Immersense system is designed to sync with a smartphone app that records a user’s progress through touch-mapped 3D cartography and audio snapshots. Hoffman hinted that a user could expand their saved maps beyond territory they’d discovered firsthand by finding in-game “Easter eggs” or by sharing intel with other players.

Owing to his initial inspiration by Poe, Hoffman declared that the first three Immersense titles would be horror-survival games but promised that titles in other genres – including stealth, open-world, and novel games – would be available as early as next year.

Despite the antecedent skepticism about a “non-visual” gaming system, the subsequent Q&A session was distinctly amicable. A disabilities activist lauded Immersense for broadening the visually-impaired community’s access to gaming. A reporter from American Survival Guide magazine said the VR system would be an invaluable training tool for “preppers”. Following that comment, however, a reporter from The Intercept asked Hoffman if it was true that Immersense originated as a DARPA-funded training simulator for Navy SEALs to prepare them for solo survival or failed equipment scenarios. Hoffman chuckled, “Well, everyone on the Immersense team has signed a non-disclosure agreement, so make of that what you will.”

Short Screen Reflection

September 17, 2017

Short Screen Reflection

I imagine future screens to be non-dependent upon bordered, material space. Rather, any surface could operate as a screen, including surfaces created through atmospheric elements (e.g. fog, water, steam, dust). In fact, surfaces themselves may not be required, as seen with three-dimensional holography.

The proliferation of mobile personal devices will allow access to the masses, within both public and domestic space. These devices will have the capacity to project images onto surfaces, using built-in lighting to illuminate the scene. In this way, there are parallels with augmented reality (AR) in that the projected, virtual images exist in concert with our real, physical environment.

This future state of screens will affect audiences by shifting them into a more active, participatory role. The change of perspective from passive viewership to physical embodiment within a scene will intensify the emotive response of the audience by increasing the sense of presence or of being ‘in’ the virtual scene.

This heightened sense of presence might enable stronger emotional response to the material, which could be useful for effecting social change. A comparative example that comes to mind is the impact of photography on generating response that led to real change, such as Nick Ut’s iconic Napalm Girl photo or Lewis Hine’s work for the National Child Labor Committee. Imagery brought people closer to situations that were otherwise too abstract to understand or absorb on an emotional level.

The embodiment of the audience within the scene will also afford a greater sense of agency. Stories about recent flooding in Houston, for example, could be virtually experienced by an audience within their own domestic space. Projected imagery of water flooding into the real environment of your home can help to mimic the direct experience of such, enabling a stronger emotive response and potentially, increased motivation to respond.

Information delivered in a sensory format can foster deeper impact within audiences than print or spoken word alone. By further increasing the sensory triggers of a piece through immersive elements that allow you to be ‘in’ the scene, audiences may feel closer to the subjects and more affected by what they see, thus leading to increased prosocial behaviour and empathic response. For this reason, I imagine these more immersive, future screens to serve an important role in education and activism.

Tags: screen assignment

future Screen – Daniel Negatu

The Future Screen

I imagine the future screen as a 3-dimensional space/screen that perceptively wraps around the viewer like a blanket simulating life itself.

A screen as big as the world where you can be free to roam around or choose to submit to a narrative that guides you through this world focusing your attention on certain elements; thereby acting as a frame.

But how does one hold a frame on such a screen? How does one focus attention? And how can you make all this a shared experience?

These are some of the questions that interest me.

Tags: #screen_assignments