Future Cinema

diy hologram

DIY hologram

anyone want to build one?

Oral Presentation Summary – Week 3: Virtual reality (Sarah Stang)

Here is the written summary for my presentation on Kac’s article. I’ve provided links to some of the holographic art (they were difficult to find, but I managed to hunt down a few). Questions are at the end.

Eduardo Kac – Beyond the Spatial Paradigm: Time and Cinematic Form in Holographic Art (1995)

-At the time of writing, holography and holographic art was not well understood and one of the most common misconceptions about it was the notion that the point was to produce a kind of illusory 3-D photograph. The author claims that this misconception is grounded on unfulfilled expectations and comparisons to other media.

-The goal of the paper is to dispel these misconceptions by demonstrating that the holographic aesthetic experience is much more complex and is actually a time-based medium. He also shows the ways holography has been explored as a time-based medium by artists.

–> Kac is focusing on time in a medium traditionally known for its spatial properties in the hopes of leading to greater appreciation for the artistic potential of holographic art

-The author cites Gene Youngblood as listing holography among the media through which cinema can be practiced because it seems that he understood holography as a time-based medium as well. Kac points out that time is manifested in holographic art not only as streams of images, but also as suspended clusters and discontinuous structures

-So what is this holographic art? As practiced by a small but increasing number of artists around the world, art holography emphasizes changes and transformations – time, in other words – as an aesthetic feature as important as the three dimensions of space. Created with computers or not, motion-based holograms become interactive events that can be perceived in any direction, forward or backward, fast or slow, depending on the relative position and speed of the viewer. Unlike the unidirectional “event-stream” of film and music, four-dimensional holograms are “buoyant events” with no beginning or end. The viewer can start looking at any point.

-Many holograms and holographic installations created today involve electronic image manipulation and digital synthesis, and draw from other artistic fields, such as photography, film, and video. These works explore time in unique ways and reveal a very important aspect of the medium

-He makes an important distinction between holographic art and holograms created by scientists or for commercial purposes. These holograms are mostly motionless, or have very limited motion, because their images usually aim at reproducing a virtual environment or object. These holographers use computers to generate these stationary virtual objects and therefore emphasize space over time and volume over movement

-Kac briefly discusses the ways in which painting’s desire to capture truth led to photography and cinema and eventually video. He points out that the development of photography forced painters to redefine the direction of their medium away from simply the recreation of reality and that computers are having a similar impact on photography today.

–> How does holography fit in this context? Holograms are already routinely synthesized from secondary sources, including silver photography, video, film, sensing devices, and computer graphics.

-American artist and holographer Dean Randazzo has used computers, video, film and photographic techniques to create complex holographic artworks of distinct beauty. Randazzo unites highly personal imagery to a sharp technical sensibility, layering images that define their space by an intricate kinetic articulation of light. Each piece is a paradigm of photographic and cinematographic records of family events clearly defined in time. Many of the old original negatives, prints and film footage that Randazzo manipulates are in a state of decay, suggesting the symbolic dissolution of memory.

-Randazzo’s typical working method starts with selecting images fixed in the past by means of light. He then manipulates these faint images with other photographic processes, sometimes with film editing or computer techniques. The resulting images are finally manipulated holographically and become propagating light again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eB-tfugYQQ

-Another interesting style of holographic work controls light in motion without referential subject matter (Rudie Berkhout, Paul Newman, and Vito Orazem)

-Berkhout is interested in the delicate manipulations of fluid images:

http://www.rudieberkhoutcollection.com/collection.html

-Newman focuses on the unique properties of pure light itself by experimenting with passing laser light through arrangements of lenses, glass, and other materials:

http://www.jrholocollection.com/index.php/paul-newman/item/195-light-form-xxviii

-Vito Orazem also searches for an aesthetics of light in motion, working with Thomas Luck to create Holographic Optical
Elements (holograms used to act as a lens or mirror instead of displaying a picture):

https://webmuseum.mit.edu/results.php?module=objects&type=browse&id=5&term=Luck%2C+Thomas&page=1&view=3

http://www.fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=297

-Holographic cinematography can trace its roots back to the 1960s and the experiments involving pulsed lasers used to record moving images. There were very few of these created for non-scientific purposes, however. The author describes the work of researchers at the Experimental Cinema Laboratory in Paris, holographic sculptor Alexander, and Lloyd Cross’ work with integral holograms:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoHjKU-EVtU

-There was also some research done in Moscow and Japan in holocinema and at MIT to develop holographic video, though state of the field at the time of writing was not very encouraging.

-Kac is certain that holography will eventually be accepted as another artist’s tool along with painting, sculpture, photography, and video though he is unsure what will become of holographic cinema

Questions:
1) Grau discusses the history of the desire to create illusory visual experiences and how this drove the development of the panorama, film, 3-D film, 360 degree film, IMAX, and VR. How do holograms fit into this history? Are they just one of the many things Gene Youngblood listed off as elements of an “Expanded Cinema” or does it have a unique place?

2) This article was written in 1995 and Kac expresses his dismay at holography’s limited status and his hopes for its importance in the future. Twenty years later what can we say about the place of holography in contemporary art?

3)I will admit that most of what I knew about holography before reading this article was regarding optical security processes, such as holographic features in banknotes. What are your thoughts on holography as art versus holography as security? Is there a relation there or is it simply a coincidence? Is this why holograms aren’t that popular as art forms? Does this have to do with stationary vs. time-based holograms?

4) We saw many interesting examples of ways in which virtual reality, 360 degree cinema, and video games can challenge society’s assumptions, explore difficult or painful concepts, and influence the way people think. Does holography fit among these noble aims? Could it be possible for this generally experimental art form to reach people in the way that Clouds Over Sidra has?

HBO Films Developing Interactive Way of Engaging with a Contemporary Audience

Steven Soderbergh and HBO are teaming up to create an interactive cinematic experience that lets you choose the outcome via an app. Read the link below for more:

http://collider.com/steven-soderbergh-making-secret-hbo-movie-mosaic-sharon-stone-garrett-hedlund/

- Cody Pentzos

Week 4, October 7th, Augmented Reality?

wow – not a single person signed up for this… not even in the top 3! I’ll likely need to assign someone, given the numbers, but before I do… would anyone like to step up to give it a shot? Come on… the Bachelard is old-fashioned,… but poetic and good for you. let me know asap if you might be interested.

(also: basically EVERYONE wants the game weeks… is it the timing or the topic or a potent combination of the two? I’ll try to extend these ideas and provide more opportunities for people…)

Tags: assignments, call for volunteers

Show &tell sign-up, 2015

Assignment 4: show and tell 5% (pass/fail)
As the name suggests – at the beginning of each class at least one of you is invited to share a work that resonates with the course – a film or game that you admire, an installation you saw, technology in the news that we should all see – discussing your own future cinema-related work is definitely encouraged! Also, in addition to being responsible for making a larger effort at least once, and committing to a day to do so, please feel free to share this kind information via the class blog at any time!

Week 3, September 30th Virtual Reality

Sarah Stang

Week 4, October 7th, Augmented Reality

Mark Mungo
Jonathan Clancy

Week 5, October 14th, Hypermedia/narrative/digital storytelling

Cody Pentzos

Week 6 October 21st, Database Cinema

Alison Humphrey

Week 7 October 28th Game Narratives and Architectures

Oksana Unguryan
Jeff Young

Week 8 November 4th Games2

Sam Rickford

Nanna Rebekka

Week 9, November 11th, Mobility/Connectivity/Distributed networks

Andi Schwartz

Week 10, November 18th, Digital Cinema/animation

Aly Edwards

Week 11, November 25th, Translocality/Globalization/Tactical Media

Sarah Voisin

Memory Lane

Memory Lane: Short Screens Paper
by Andi Schwartz

Memory Lane is an immersive, multi-projection screening site for telling linear autobiographical narratives. Memoir or autobiography is typically a linear narrative that consists of selected stories from the author/filmmaker’s life that are considered significant to who the author has become. Memory Lane reflects this linearity in a literal way. Spectators enter Memory Lane at one end of a long straight hallway. Each side of the hallway is lined with large scale screens. Each screen plays a loop of video representing a memory or story within the narrative. The video is accompanied by an aural account of the story in the filmmaker’s voice. The audio runs longer than the video, but both run on a loop.

As the spectator moves forward through Memory Lane, they encounter new screens playing new videos telling new stories that shape the autobiographical narrative. These stories are linked and build in significance. As the spectator moves past a screen, the audio and visual story does not stop but continues playing on the loop. This means the audio from each memory overlaps at times and some audio grows faint as the spectator moves further away from it. Spectators can return to a section of Memory Lane to revisit a story and it will still be playing, much like how real memory functions. When spectators are finished moving through Memory Lane, they exit at the opposite end of the hallway.

Though the screening site is immersive and there is some room for spectators to move at their own pace or move backwards and forwards, the filmmaker ultimately has control over the story being told. Memory Lane offers a conceptualization of moving through memory. It provides an opportunity for spectators to be fully immersed and engaged in memoir in a way that differs from other forms like books or more traditional films. This immersive and engaging nature of Memory Lane has the potential to increase the impact on the spectator, hopefully leading to higher levels of empathy and understanding of other human experiences.

Tags: Screens, screens assignment

The Cinema of “Utopia”

What would a perfect world look like for you?

What if you could be invincible, immortal, all knowing? What if everyone else was as well? Would you want to be special?

What about your own universe, where you could live your wildest dreams?

All of this would be possible in the future. And possibly before you’d expect it. Imagine a computer capable of entering you into a simulated universe, where you can set the rules. And not only one universe, but infinite. You could swing swords with Aragorn, cast spells with Harry, play hockey with Gretzky. And you could do this with others too, as these computers could be connected. You and as many friends as you want could enter a world where you rule as lords, form alliances and wage war with each other. Although you could just as easily go on a ski trip to Mars.

Or why not live someone else’s life, going along for the ride. With infinite time (immortality), why not create an entire authentic life experience, and share it with others? All narrative art forms are summaries, life is story.

Why stop at being a human? Why not be a goat in the himalayas, or an octopus in the deep sea? Hell, go be Pacman and experience being half mouth, or fly through space at impossible speeds (think of the “Ship of Imagination” from Cosmos)

What if this computer was in our heads, and could be activated merely by desire? What if we could shape these worlds with our thoughts, with the most intuitive interface possible (imagination). We could share these worlds, almost like sharing dreams, a la Inception, minus the intravenous.

We wouldn’t even need to enter into a simulation to use this technology. Read a book or parchment that doesn’t exist in reality, but can be conjured for yourself and/or others to see. Wear custom clothes that others see (sorry non-cyborgs and animals, hope you’re body positive).  If we no longer need to eat, why not enjoy a vast banquet, with ethically produced (or not produced, more accurately), delicious food and drink, all under a real sun, with real people?

The imagination lies at the core of every creative endeavor, and its full realization, incorporating all the senses, is its end goal. Just as moving images and audio recordings merged to produce modern film, the confluence of all the senses results in a fully realized cinema.

The ability of customization and creation invites you to blur the line between performer and audience, between creator and spectator. The only limits are human imagination.

Tags: Imagination, Immersion, Too Many Questions, Utopia

That Minority Report screen everybody keeps referencing

Minority Report UI Innovation analysis from Philippe DEWOST on Vimeo.

Flexible Fabric Screen

As touch screens are becoming more flexible, durable, and responsive, I think that one way the future of screen technology may evolve is into completely malleable and mouldable screens. I imagine these screens to be made of a fabric-like material which would be both durable and extremely flexible while also allowing images to be displayed upon it. Ideally, this material would be soft and thin, able to become transparent or translucent as required. This material should also be mouldable in that it can be made into a shape and it can retain its shape until “reset.”

I imagine this kind of screen to be used in classrooms to allow young children to play and learn in exciting ways. Children could play games with on-screen characters, or with their friends standing on the other side of it, like a curtain. They would interact with the screen not just by tapping it, but also by pushing it, pulling it, and even sculpting it. The children would be able to sculpt this fabric screen into different shapes, like animals or even models of cities and see their creations “projected” onto the object. The word “projected” here is misleading, however, as due to the flexible and malleable nature of this fabric, anything projected onto it would quickly lose shape and distort. Instead, I imagine this fabric as being able to project light out from itself so that the image actually comes from the screen itself. Although I am unsure how this would be achieved, it is possible that the future of nanotechnology or fiber-optics could meet this need.

Along with its remarkable flexibility and shape-holding properties, this fabric-like screen would also have to be interactive and respond to the children’s input. This input may not only be tactile, but could also include tracking and reacting to the children’s movements and voice commands. Perhaps this fabric could also change feeling and consistency depending on how it is used (for example, it could become rough and stone-like if being used to model a cave wall) so the users can get a fuller sensory experience.

Another way this material could be used is as a curtain to cover the walls, ceiling, and floors of a classroom or other designated space to create the illusion that the children have entered into an entirely new space. This can be thought of as a sort of virtual reality, but without head-mounted displays, allowing for a more open, communal experience. Teachers could use this to show children life in the ocean, or deserted landscapes of other planets, or the inside of a medieval castle, to name a few examples. The possibilities for teaching and learning are endless.

The biggest challenge with this screen is simply the technology and also the cost. Even if we could create the right kind of material, and imbue it with optic technology allowing it to display images from within itself, we would also have to ensure that ordinary schools could afford large enough quantities of the fabric to cover an entire room.

I Am a Screen

I Am a Screen
(with apologies to Christopher Isherwood and John Van Druten)

Imagine projection onto the human body. This future cinema screen would have two distinct types of audience: the subjective (viewing by the “projectee” themselves), and the objective (viewing by other people).

Viewing by the person being projected onto would seem, at first, to limit surfaces to those comfortably within their line of sight: the front or back of the hand or arm, the knee, or the top of the thigh. However, one can imagine a sort of miniaturized road-trip narrative that moves across the landscape of the body. Following the story from place to place would require gentle stretching or strenuous isometric holds, creating a new hybrid form of entertainment- exercise. “Yoganimation”, perhaps.

Viewing projection on another person’s body – or even on one’s own – immediately lends itself to erotica. At last the promise in the term “touchscreen” can be fully realized. But there is also the ancient art of the mask, wherein the face is caked and cloaked to incarnate as an animal or spirit or demon or god, and where the tilting of an inanimate piece of chiseled wood can create new angles and shadows that suggest changing expressions. A projected mask could prompt a new storytelling style that harks back to the Expressionist silent film, with dialogue replaced by facially-projected visuals that belie Duncan’s line in Macbeth, “There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.” Or it could throw us forward into a new dramatic form where text and subtext are superimposed, and the spectator learns to read both the projected face and the flesh-and-blood expressions underneath it, the way a foreign-film aficionado can listen to original dialogue and read subtitles simultaneously.

A parent and child might play an updated version of “Round and round the garden” or “This little piggy” projected on the child’s palm or toes. Bathtime characters could be chased all over the body by a soapy washcloth, or a barbershop quartet could pop up one by one to sing a song from newly-brushed teeth. Projection onto two hands at once could turn them into two puppets in dialogue with one another, and by tracking how the hands are turned toward or away from each other, brought closer together or further apart, a responsive system could change that dialogue from cordial to combative. A narrative could be told from two perspectives, so that the parent watches one playing out on the palm of their hand, and on its back, the child watches the other. Or for a single viewer, two storylines could be intertwined so that one can flip back and forth between them with the turn of a wrist.

Corporeal projection would obviously be ideal for any kind of biological documentary taking viewers inside the very body they’re using as a screen. But it could also lend itself to more sociological films about the experience of ageing or race as inscribed on the body. Imagine a “touch-screen” interactive documentary mapped to sites of domestic abuse, or a time-lapse of the various physical effects of long-term homelessness, which the viewer can sense unfolding closer to home than any separate screen could show.

Melanin, of course, is a key issue in any of the above scenarios. The darker the “screen”, the narrower the possible range of shades that can be projected onto it. Perhaps rather than projection from above the surface, we should be envisioning a thin, flexible screen that one could stick on like anti-blister moleskin, after cutting it to the desired shape. The classic Dick Tracy wrist-television and the new Apple iWatch, both squares strapped to a wrist, require the viewer to hold their arm at an unnatural angle. But the hand’s most comfortably visible surfaces are the web of skin between the thumb and index finger, and the palm. How might an animation on that thumb-finger web echo what a person is drawing with the pencil held in those same digits? What film subjects would lend themselves a triangular or concave-circular frame?

For the viewer/screen-wearer, the final question is interoceptive: how does it feel to place one’s body in the position requested by the screen? Watching a feature on a huge screen from the front row is unlike watching it on an iPhone in most ways: the former opens the chest and throat while one gazes up in awe at the gods, while the latter is a private, hunch-backed affair, though both will leave you with a crick in your neck. What emotion is evoked in the viewer even before a film begins by the action of cupping it in the palm of your hand like a baby bird? Might a teenage girl get a movie manicure for a night out clubbing, with four tiny screens that turn on automatically when she makes the universal gesture of boredom or pointed disregard: inspecting one’s nails. And how would it feel to listen to the soundtrack of a horror film that you cannot see, because your friends are watching it projected on your back – or worse, that you can only catch glimpses of where it creeps up over your shoulder?

— Alison Humphrey