A trans-media virtual environment interpretation, created by 3 artists and one virtual world avatar, of a formation of modular kinetic objects along with accompanying music and images.
Title:
Trans - combining prefix from Latin, trans means "across", "beyond".
---~ - to reflect the creators.
Formation - an arrangement of people or things acting as a unit;
a particular spatial arrangement;
the fabrication of something in a particular shape.
Artists:
Richard Brown
Julian Wagstaff
Austin Tate
Ai Austin
History:
Richard Brown initial Formation installation design for School of
Informatics Forum Building, University of Edinburgh (2006).
Richard Brown and Ai Austin initial visualization of what could be
done in a Second Life as an interpretation of Formation (October 2007):
[ Image ]
Music and slide show added with cooperation of Julian Wagstaff.
Installation taken down from VCE on Second Life and moved to
"The Vaults@Vue on the "Edinburgh Uplands" region
on Openvue grid (OpenSimulator)
(May 2013).
Music:
Title: Treptow
Composer: Julian Wagstaff
Date: 2005
Performers: The Rose Street Ensemble
Conductor: Richard Lewis
This 10-minute long atmospheric piece for strings was inspired by
the awesome Soviet war memorial (sowjetisches Ehrenmal) in Treptow
Park in East Berlin.
The creators are all linked via their association with the School of
Informatics at the University of Edinburgh and came together to create
this virtual world installation on Vue
(http://vue.ed.ac.uk) in Second
Life (http://secondlife.com)
in October and November 2007.
Richard Brown creates interactive artworks using multi-media
technology, computer programming, electronics and interfacing. He was
Research Artist in Residence in the School of Informatics from 2005-7.
[ http://www.mimetics.com ]
Julian Wagstaff is a composer and musician working mainly in the field
of concert music and musical theatre. He was supported by the School
of Informatics in the production of his opera The Turing Test which
was premiered at the Edinburgh Festival in 2007. [ http://www.julianwagstaff.com
]
Austin Tate is Director of the Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute in the School of Informatics and heads Vue - the Virtual University of Edinburgh. He has been the principal designer of the Vue regions in Second Life and is a 3D modeller and graphic artist.
[ http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~bat/ ]
Ai Austin is Austin Tate's avatar in Second Life. He created The
Vaults@Vue in which the installation was originally placed, the Cave@VCE
into which it was moved in 2010, the Openvue facilties in
OpenSim into which a copy was placed,
the background
planetary installation and the Trans---~Formation virtual world
installation itself. [ http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~ai/
]
Installation Notes:
The 3-D Design is based on the planned University of Edinburgh School
of Informatics Forum Formation installation notes from artist designer
Richard Brown.
19 molecules are planned to be suspended from the ceiling of the
Informatics building atrium, arranged as a "bubble packed" array 3, 4,
5 ,4, 3. Each molecule consist of two light spheres (lit by RGB LED
lighting) connected together via a fixed tube.
Approximate dimensions are: molecule length end to end 1m: sphere 1:
40cm diameter, sphere 2: 25cm diameter, tube: 35cm x 5cm.
The molecules can be angled, raised and lowered by two winches with
cables attached to the two spheres. The vertical movement range is
20m. The winches are fixed to a bar which can be rotated enabling the
whole molecule to turn as a unit. The two spheres can be any shade of
colour programmed as an RGB colour. he whole system is planned to be
MIDI-like controllable, enabling choreographed movements and patterns
set to music.
A further plan is to enable students to be able write control software
so as to produce generative and emergent behaviours, with the addition
of sensing units (cameras, microphone, proximity, etc.) the system may
also be made interactive - able to respond to temperature, wind
direction, movements of people and so forth.
Bob Fisher, a roboticist in the School of Informatics,
led a team which created a physical prototype of one of the modules of
the planned Formation installation. Sample images of a prototype of
one element of Formation as at December 2007 are at
"Informatics
Forum Arts Projects Design Notes"
[Local Copy:
Image 1,
Image 2]
