Information
Agnes Hegedüs >
»Memory Theatre VR«, 1997 - 1997
Co-Workers & Funding:
Produced with the support of ARTEC'91, Nagoya, Japan.http://on1.zkm.de/zkm/werke/MemoryTheaterVR
Technology
Hardware
Silicon Graphics Indigo2 Maximum Impact, Data Projector, Polhemus 3D tracker
Installation Requirements / Space
8,04 M diameter cylindrical space,Interface
a miniature model of the installation is used in conjunction with Polhemus 3D tracker Miniature model: Bossinade Lightworks
Software
Softimage
Descriptions & Essays
Memory Theater VR is an example of a virtual museum that embodies original architectural, interface and visualization strategies that converge the experience of real and virtual formations. The installation itself is set inside a cylindrical space, which is constructed out of wood panels that resemble a theater set. The user interface, a three dimensional spatial tracking device, can be moved around inside a clear plexi-glass replica of this cylindrical enclosure, and images are projected onto a large curved screen that is set into the circular wall opposite the interface.
Moving the interface device allows the viewer to choose and enter four distinct virtual spaces through a clock-like compass, North, East, South, West indicating the four different virtual spaces, each of which is also a virtual replica of the overall cylindrical architecture of the installation. In each of these represented spaces there is a specific scenography of images and objects that are arranged inside this shared architectural environment, and the projection screen in the virtual space becomes a surface for showing film clips.
The content of this installation is a personally contrived cultural and technological history of virtual reality. The four thematic worlds constitute a virtual memory theater of diverse quotations and references from the history of art, science, theater, literature, cinema and architecture. Specific precursors of modern virtual reality techniques are re-embodied such as tromp l'oeil, anamorphoses. The concept of the memory theater is used as a frame to create a newly compound space that is both a virtual museum and curiosity cabinet of heterogeneous images and artifacts that encompasses a profuse collection of works arranged in the following groupings:
South
(pioneers of modern
virtual reality research )
SCOTT FISHER
IVAN SUTHERLAND
JIM CLARK
HUGHES (UK) LTD.
MARK ANDREESEN MOSAIC
JEFFREY SHAWVIRTUAL MUSEUM
MARK BOLAS MONDRIAN
WEST
(on the theme of wunderkammer:
early models of knowledge, collection of curiosities)
ROBERT FLUDD APE OF NATURE
ANAMORPHOSES
LIQUID LIGHT SHOW
BILL SEAMAN WORLD GENERATOR
MASAKI FUJIHATA GLOBAL INTERIOR
PERRY HOBERMAN BAR CODE HOTEL
MATT MULLIGAN ...
MARCEL DUCHAMP
RENE MAGRITTE
MARCEL BROODHAERS
PETER WEIBEL
EAST
(a child's room: imagination as virtuality)
LEWIS CARROL ALICE IN WONDERLAND
SWIFT GULLIVER'S TRAVELS
ANTONIN ARTAUD
DRAWINGS OF CHILDREN (from the Kinderhaus Neurot)
AGNES HEGEDUS FRUIT MACHINE / HANDSIGHT / ISE D'OIL
JEFFREY SHAW GOLDEN CALF
PAUL SERMON TELEMATIC DREAMING
WIZARD OF OZ
THE FROG PRINCE
JEAN COCTEAU ORPHEUS
THE GOLEM
THE INVISIBLE MAN
NORTH
(on the theme of deconstruction,
recent models of knowledge: analysis and disassembling)
UMBERTO BOCCIONI
DANIEL LIEBESKIND
ROLLER COASTER
DE VRIES PERSPECTIVE DRAWINGS
LEDOUX EYE
LABYRINTH
JAMES JOYCE
(A. Hegedüs)
Literature
Hegedüs, Agnes. »My Autobiographical Media History - Metaphors of Interaction, Communication
and Body Using Electronic Media.« In Women, Art and Technology, edited by Judy Malloy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003.
Matussek, Peter. »Gedächtnistheater im Dialog von Mediävistik und Medienwissenschaft.« In Akten des X. Internationalen Germanistenkongresses Wien 2000, edited by Peter WiesingerVol.5. Mediävistik und Kulturwissenschaften - Mediävistik und Neue Philologie, , 43-49. Bern: 2000.
Schwarz, Hans-Peter, ed. Medien - Kunst - Geschichte. Anläßlich der Eröffnung des Museums für Neue Kunst, ZKM, Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe am 18. Oktober 1997, Medienmuseum th ed.München, London, New York: Prestel Verlag, 1997.
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