Virtual Creativity - Volume 10, Issue 2, 2020

Out of Sight, Out of Mind is a unique interactive 360° video experience of the Mar Menor that manifests the Anthropocene effects on the landscape as augmented, surreal and metaphysical interpretations of the artist’s experiences, during their residency and available secondary scientific data of the Mar Menor ecosystem. Through environmental, social, economic and cultural observations and encounters the team developed an immersive 360° environment that incorporates video and audio recordings with augmented, imaginary and predicted realities transformed from scientific data in obscure and profound guises. This 360° telematic installation incorporating live audience interaction within the original 360° video experience was exhibited at the Centro Cultural Puertas de Castilla in Murcia in May 2019. This collaborative project was developed following a ten-day residency on the Mar Menor, a 170 km² saltwater lagoon on the south-east coast of Spain in September 2018, where the majority of the primary research took place by gathering 360° video material from observations, experiences and interviews. The project has been developed by a team of three UK artists, each bringing specialist experience and knowledge of 360° video to undertake the research and create a unique understanding and manifestation of the changing ecosystem of the Mar Menor. This collaborative project includes and combines Paul Sermon’s co-located telematic experiences in 360° live video environments, Charlotte Gould’s immersive 360° animated augmented reality and Jeremiah Ambrose’s gaze-controlled navigation through 360° video narratives. This practice-based team of artists undertook this research using a range of video and gaming software and advanced hardware devices, including Insta360 Pro 8K video cameras and Oculus Rift head-mounted-displays in conjunction with live video switchers. This has produced a range of ultra HD 360° outputs involving stereo 8K and real-time 4K environments with augmented live 360° video and animation sequences through live chroma-keying effects.

This article presents the development of an extended reality (XR) interactive wall design that employs augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (AR) to display digital content in educational and exhibition settings. A wall design printed with a number of conventional graphical elements was enhanced with AR and VR, including AR-based video, a 360 virtual environment and 3D-scanned materials. The early design of the XR interactive wall was tested several times in a university setting during academic events designed to demonstrate science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)-based content. This provided AR and VR experiences to participating visitors in an exhibition setting, where multimedia mobile devices were provided to aid these experiences. Inclusive design principles were employed, and elements integrated that allowed users (standing adults, children, wheelchair users) to view and interact with AR and VR content conveniently. After the initial introduction of the interactive wall design, the prototype was redesigned to fit both handheld and head-mount-device (HMD)-based mobile configurations. In this article we describe the prototype, a user experience study based on laboratory testing and directions for future work.

This article uses the example of a digital Nigeria visualization and animation project to provide an insight into the kind of technological, cultural and communication possibilities available for indigenous groups of Africa, and Nigeria in particular. This follows the nascent dispersal of the digital three-dimensional media production experiences in Nigeria. The project has used digital media technology to capture visual elements of different cultural elements amongst the Igbo of Nigeria as a means of promoting identity and cultural longevity. An overview of the development of digital 3D animation in Nigeria has been used to locate the project in the stream of contemporary practice so as to provide the right context for its appreciation.

BeAnotherLab were recipients of the 2017 STARTS Prize¹ Honorary Mention for their work Library of Ourselves, an interdisciplinary and distributed project to create transformative encounters between communities in conflict. Described by the collective as an open book of embodied narratives, the ongoing archive of the Library of Ourselves is composed of stories recorded from a first-person perspective of individuals, belonging to various communities. The art collective based in Barcelona was formed almost a decade ago and consists of nine members from wide-ranging backgrounds. In this article I will discuss their engagement with empathy VR. I will draw on my interviews with a number of members of the collective and my meetings with them in Barcelona. I also discuss the significance of their work as an art collective and the impact this has on their arts practice.

Review of: Shifting Interfaces: An Anthology of Presence, Empathy and Agency in 21st-Century Media Arts, Hava Aldouby (ed.) (2020)

Leuven: Leuven University Press, 332 pp.,

ISBN 978-9-46270-225-7, p/bk, $69.50