Information
Michael Naimark >
»Be Now Here«, 1995 - 2002
Co-Workers & Funding:
Produced byInterval Research Corporation, Palo Alto
with the cooperation of
The UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Paris
http://www.naimark.net/projects/benowhere.html
Technology
Descriptions & Essays
Be Now Here is an installation about landscape and public places. Visitors gain a strong sense of place by wearing 3-D glasses and stepping into an immersive virtual environment. The imagery is of public plazas on the UNESCO World Heritage Centre's list of endangered places - Jerusalem, Dubrovnik, Timbuktu, and Angkor, Cambodia - places both exotic and disturbing. The style is ambient, as if the imagery is live.
For production, a unique recording system was built consisting of two 35mm motion-picture cameras (for 3D, one for each eye) mounted on a rotating tripod. The installation consists of an input pedestal for interactively choosing place and time, a stereoscopic projection screen, four-channel audio, and a 16-foot rotating floor on which the viewers stand.
Be Now Here is an extension of several media trajectories. One is of enhanced cinematic representation, such as the Imax-sized projections of the Lumiere brothers in 1900 and the 3-screen triptychs of Abel Gances Napoleon in 1927. Another is of non-narrative cultural activism, such as the films of Godfrey Reggio and Tony Gatlif. But Be Now Here also points forward: as a simulation of what net cinema can be, it is both a regard and a provocation.
Michael Naimark
Literature
Paul, Christiane. Digital Art. World of Art Series, New York: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 2008.
Naimark, Michael. »Field Recording Techniques for Virtual Reality Applications.« In VSMM´98 Proceedings, edited by . Gifu: 1998.
Naimark, Michael. »Whats Wrong with this Picture? Presence and Abstraction in the Age
of Cyberspace.« edited by Roy Ascottl. Newport: 1997.
Naimark, Michael. »A 3D Moviemap and a 3D Panorama.« In SPIE Proceedings, edited by SPIE 3012, . San Jose, CAL: 1997.
Naimark, Michael. »Art ("and" or "versus") Technology Some Personal Observations.« In Art@Science, edited by Sommerer. Christa and Laurent Mignonneau. New York, Wien: Springer, 1997.
Naimark, Michael. »Be Now Here- Field Reports - UNESCO World Heritage Endangered Cities.« .
Exhibitions & Events