There, Now
Above: Video documentation of the installation Here, Now. Another video by Mab MacMoragh can be seen on Vimeo here
There, Now, a mixed reality installation, continues work on ideas of space/place initiated as part of the concurrent series of interventions (Intervention #1 & Intervention #2) at I AM Columbia
On entering the installation at Push the visitor is presented with what resembles a vista of another space, a combined place that employs live imagery from four continents together with rudimentary Second Life primitives and dynamic effects such as simulated water and particles.
Above: Installation exterior.
Similar to Intervention #2, the installation is a way and means of seeing out of the ‘virtual’ space that is Second Life however this time it is our global physical environment we see which has been cut and pasted together. Distance, time and place as experienced in ‘real’ life are folded together. On closer inspection however the installation is revealed to be designed to be seen from a single viewpoint. ‘Real’ mountains, forests and skies become flats on the ‘virtual’ stage of Second Life, moving around them reveals their true shape, their featureless sides and back and the props that supposedly support their (‘virtual’) physical weight.
Above: Click image for a gallery of installation photos.
More than a Second Life space, blacked off from the environment of Second Life within its own construction, it is almost completely isolated from the ‘virtual’ world yet acknowledges and underlines its falsehood. The space is visually analogous to pictorial representations of space within our culture. It is a representation layered within the representation of Second Life. Not ‘real’ and yet no longer just ‘virtual’, it mixes these together to create a third space, a meta metaverse that adds another layer to our experience of reality.
Only by entering this representational space within a representational space can we remove/distance ourselves from the first and look at it objectively.
Above: Webcam locations within the installation.
Locations within the installation are arranged as follows, numbers 1-6 are webcam streams from ‘real’ world locations while 7 is the sea from Second Life:
- The sky over Shizuoka Prefecture in front of Mt.Fuji, Japan: http://www.grandview413.jp/.
- The Grand Canyon, Arizona, America: http://www.zeitcam.com/webcam/grandcanyon.
- The Rockies, Banff, Canada: http://www.explorerockies.com/banff-webcam/.
- The Black Forest, Todtmoos in Germany: http://www.todtmoos.de/de/wetter/index.php.
- The plains in front of Kilimanjaro, Kenya, Africa: http://kenyawebcam.com/cam.pl?cam=kanzicam.
- The Pyramid of Cheops, Giza, Egypt: http://www.pyramidcam.com/.
- The Second Life sea.
Many thanks to all at Soup and Lovers Lane Studios for their support and kindly hosting this work.