Artist in Residence maart - juni 2008

Exploded Views by Marnix de Nijs

Exploded Views is an interactive installation whereby three participants run on individual conveyor belts and physically move themselves through an interactive audio-environment and interactive imagery projected at the front of the belts. After having made several interactive audio-visual installations the desire arose to develop a new installation wherein further possibilities exist to work with a more complex content and the most important aspect of the cinematography: the suggestive. These possibilities have been initiated in Exploded Views in both the applications of visual and auditive 3Dtechniques.

Audio-visual content will be made for three different cities. A personal interest in now-a-days urban and global development will be the starting point to create site-specific content and to reflect on the local situation. The first city will be Florence where, through increased mobility, the focus is the incessantly growing number of tourists that violate public life in its entirety. (12 million tourists per year compared with a population of only 355, 000)

Technically the biggest challenge during the project is the development of an audio-visual rich realtime 3D experience rather than the game element itself.

The city's landscape will be designed using high-quality geometry models that are reconstructed from huge amounts of images of the existing locations. This scene reconstruction process creates an unusually geometry that exceeds any currently available game aesthetics.

Exploded Views finds its true significance in combination with the imagery and audio earlier defined: while the picture material literally avoids the presence of people, the audio manifests their existence. The sound for Exploded Views will be generated just like the picture material in 3D-engine. Several sources are placed at various points in the x,y plane. As you approach these virtual sound sources they will fade in and become increasingly more audible. Therefore, the player’s position in the 3D-world will depict the mix between the various samples.

The Netherlands Media Art Institute specifically supports the 3D authoring and game implementation involved in this project.

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Producers:
Marnix de Nijs, Rotterdam
www.marnixdenijs.nl/
The Centre for Contemporary Culture Strozzina (CCCS), part of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence
www.strozzina.org

Co-producer:
The Netherlands Media Art Institute, Montevideo/Time Based Arts, Amsterdam
www.nimk.nl

Concept & realization:
Marnix de Nijs, Rotterdam
www.marnixdenijs.nl/

Audio-design:
Boris Debackere, Antwerp
www.rotorscoop.net/

Scene Reconstruction:
Structure From Motion: Noah Snavely (University of Washington),
phototour.cs.washington.edu/
Multi-View Stereo: Michael Goesele, Sebastian Koch (TU Darmstadt)
grail.cs.washington.edu/projects/mvscpc/

3D authoring and game implementation:
Blender Institute Project Apricot, Amsterdam
www.blender.org/

Game-Engine: Crystal Space
www.crystalspace3d.org

EVENTS MARNIX DE NIJS

EXPLODED VIEWS - REMAPPING FIRENZE
May 15, 2008 - June 30, 2008 ,
Centro di Cultura Contemporanea Strozzina, Firenze, IT
www.strozzina.org/exploded_views/

May 30, 2008 - September 30, 2008
DEEP SCREEN - ART IN DIGITAL CULTURE
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NL
www.stedelijk.nl/

Jun 10, 2008 - July 3, 2008
“SYNTHETIC TIMES – MEDIA ART CHINA 2008'
National Art Museum of China, Beijing, CN
www.mediartchina.org/

June 19 20 21, 2008
SONAR 2008, SONARMATICA08
Centre d'Art Santa Mònica Barcelona, SP
www.sonar.es/portal/eng/home.cfm