Tag Archives: Thinking

The Geranium Project (R&D) 23

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Late again with the blog post. My excuse is the febrile nature of the world currently and the difficulty ignoring it. On Monday 25th I had a catch up meeting with Wayne Sables about where to take the project next. I am determined that I’ll have a new set up completed for a weekend event after the election!

These videos give a sense of where the project is and where it’s going.

The major thing to do with the physical installation is to get some light into it wirhout interfering with the projection, so on wednesday I got some Christmas lights and installed them along on wall.

I worked out that my issue with the VR world gardens having the same textures was because they were copies, essentially Unity appears to ‘instance’ copies as a default. I had to reload the gardens as separate files to maintain their differences.

I made a layout drawing to help me position the gardens so that the world functions as a circle, the idea being that you follow the succesive gardens and end up back where you started.

The Geranium Project (R&D) 22

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After a desultory effort at last weeks blog due to a truncated week this week was better focused and, eventually, more productive.

This is a better photograph of the drawing begun last week, I’m hoping to be able to interpret this into a 3d model for the hedges in one of the garden versions. The main thrust of the week was developing the interior of the installation upstairs while preparing for an event in mid December where the new installation and the VR need to be presented.

I spent Monday doing some work on the drawing and installing the projector for the new installation. I’ve raised the height to limit the shadows now that I’m not having the revealed texts, and need to limit the width of the projection to the eight foot square backcloth that you will be able to walk through. Doing this on a shoestring means that I’ve used a drip cover I had as the projection screen, after testing I’ve had to paint the centre of it white so that the video shows up better. The next stage is to limit the space, making the environment more oppresive and confining. This will limit the audience to two or three at a time, but that will (may) allow for the ‘player’ to leave the installation and enter the VR world.

Alongside this we had a heavy frost on Tuesday so I took the opportunity to photgraph the garden and on Wednesday I adjusted the VR to make the frost garden. The two pictures below show scenes from within the ‘frost garden’ in VR.

colour adjusted garden

Frost Garden in VR (the ground is icy now)

On Friday I worked on the installation, using the ‘Snow Line’ scultpure to build up one side of the installation.

Composite views of the new installation

Lit view of the new installation

Lit view of the new installation

The installation is taking shape now and I’ve created a couple of niches where some interactive elements will be installed – I need to introduce some lighting and at a low level and the sound needs significant work.

The Geranium Project (R&D) 17

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Following on last Friday I’ve got a group of students coming this week. Monday was spent cleaning up the current file as much as possible. I’ve kept a copy for my visitors to see on Wednesday.

Presentation to Students from Barnsley College 16/10/2019

The visits start with a brief presentation that covers the studio (axisweb, insurances, precarity, etc.,) and then the ACE project and it’s gestation. This is followed up with a chance to try the VR and look at the installation. I then get people to feedback on the big boards.

Student feedback 16/10/2019

The students were generally positive about the work but there were a range of views about the validity of VR as an art form, how well the installation worked and whether the two elements worked together. So far I’m pleased that the feedback reflects my own feelings about the next steps for the work.

I’ve got a couple of videos of students using the space so I can get information about how it is used.

At the moment I still need someone to instruct the ‘player’ as they negotiate the space.

Do I insert instructions into the space, and if so should they be written or spoken?

After Wednesday I spent some time working on the new version of the garden, finally resolving (as best I can) the splashes into 3d models

The video shows importing, scaling and positioning some of the new models. There is still a good amount of work to do.