PROJECT DIRECTION:
Caro Fekete-Kaiser
KulturAXE Vienna
Prof. Herbert Lachmeyer
Director of the Master Class for
Experimental Visual Creation
Academy of Artistic and
Industrial Creation, Linz
Associate Prof. Martin Sperka
Deprtment of Information Science
and Engineering, FEI Slovak University of Technology, Bratislava
COORDINATION:
Associate Prof. Jan Fekete, Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava
ARTISTIC AND TECHNICAL DIRECTION:
Margarete Jahrmann / Max Moswitzer,
mamax
Dipl. Ing. Hermann Gruber, Archimedia
Institute for Arts&Technology
(Forschungsinstitut der Hochschule fuer Gestaltung in Linz), initiated by Dr. Herbert
Lachmayer
LECTURES:
Prof. Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann
University of Geneva, Miralab
Assoc. Prof. Martin Sperka
University of Technology, Bratislava
PROJECT IDEA:
Multinational workshop and a hot topic in webcasting and presentation
is Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML), which means data
representation in 3 dimensional virtual space. A growing community is
linked by electronic communication and developing construction of
personal representations - Avatars as a cyberspace parallel to the
mythical incarnations.
The human body is not so much the history of its representations as of
its modes of construction." Michael Feher, ed. (Ramona Naddaff, Nadia
Tazi) Fragments for a History of the Human Body, 1989
Avatars have according to status and definition in virtual space certain
predefined shapes, habits and activities defining their entities
(by scripts).
Checking of the state of the "common databody". Can the individual no
more have a single databody? The thoughts of Stone, that one common
databody is defined by a certain amount of users of a community in
cyberspace, can be usefull, when several participants want to define
a new virtual persona in dataspace together - in collaborative work.
The virtual person is no more linked to the limited personality, gender
and body.
Stone describes in her work "The war of desire and technology at
the Close of the mechanical age",1995, the in/difference between
person, personality, persona, subject and self. It is now necessary
to understand the physical position of the self in virtual systems
independantly from the body.
The metabody can be developed in a common net process. The
3 dimensional representation of the databody by e-mail and image
transfer as factor of the body can be constructed here in a
test surrounding (see Douglas Davis, who is starting "magic of
words and images" in his online projected metabody).
Possible representation formats beside analog historical metaphors
evolved in discussions and constant work at the workshop and were
compared with existing efforts on this topic.
Which models for orientation in real or virtual life can be used?
The aesthtics of computer rendered worlds is aproblem since user
friendly applications are available. Render modes and textures entail
a specific corporate structure.
How emancipation from analog retrospective metaphors is possible?
What metaphors we can use ? Which independant mental models we can
develop and which are working for navigation in dataspace?
The world known expert on visual human cloning - professor Nadia
Magnenat Thalmann shown in her lectures the state of art in modeling
shapes and behavoir of computer representations of persons.
Participants from Austria, Slovakia, Switzerland and Ukraina tried in
frames of 14 days workshop implement their own ideas of selfrepresentation in cyberspace
with the help of available hardware and software systems and assistance
provided by sponsoring companies.
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Hardware: 6 x Silicon
Graphics O2 workstations, LAN, overhead video projector,
1 x Apple Power PC, video camera
Software: Alias Power
Animator, Silicon Graphics Cosmo Worlds, Netscape Navigator,
Adobe Photoshop, Macromind Director back
ARCHIMEDIA, Institute
for Arts and Technology, Linz
Academy of Artistic and Industrial Creation, Master Class for
Experimental
Visual Creation, Linz
Department of Information and
Computer Science, FEI STU Bratislava
Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava
WITH FRIENDLY
ASSISTANCE OF:
ARCHIMEDIA, Linz, Prof. Dr. Lachmayer
Silicon Reality s.r.o. Bratislava (provided
Silicon Graphics workstations and technicians)
Silicon Graphics Brno, Vienna
Software Partner s.r.o.
Bratislava
Austrian Embassy in Slovakia
Swiss Cultural
Foundation PRO HELVETIA
Soros Center
For Contemporary Arts, Bratislava
Soros Center For Contemporary Arts, Kiev
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