I wanted to have a chance to explore immersive media topics hands-on; I saw the class offered on the FSU SIGGRAPH facebook page, and I needed some credits, so I signed up right away. I've had a long-term interest in the ways that emerging technologies affect art, especially in more interactive media like video games and installations (like these).
As my background lies more in mathematics, science, programming; and digital and interactive artwork, I'm having trouble appreciating the process of traditional video production. I'm drawn more to work like Nonny De La Penas journalistic experiences, where immersive cameras and technology are used less as a tool of documentation and more as a medium of communication, expression, and a space to project experiences.
I want to explore the technologies that underlie production, and the ways to apply them in interesting and artistic ways rathern than learn just video production.
I have friends that create their own artwork or perform research in immersive and interactive media; for example my friend Mari Kyle actually has her own reserach project at USC's ICT under the School of Cinematic Arts. She explores context dependent memory in virtual reality, and works on the boundaries between technology, art, and psychology.
Thanks to my time at SIGGRAPH2016, my friendship with Mari Kyle, and my time as an orgnizer for a (now defunct) VR Hackathon, I'm quite aware of several different parties developing interesting immersive technologies:
- Helm Systems (Myron Mortakis ❤️)
- USC ICT (Mari Kyle ❤️)
- Google Daydream (Paul Debevec)
- Embry Riddle Aeronautical (Dynamite)
- NASA Mars Rover program
- Emblematic Group (Nonny De La Pena)
- Michael Macedonia, UCF, military applications
- State Farm
- Microsoft (Mark Bolas, the real MVP)
- Fove & the Fove0
- Janus VR (Alain Chesnais)
- ILMxLab
- Disney (MK Hayley ❤️)
- FIU iCAVE
- FSU Inter-disciplinary Computing Group (Ken Balduf)
- FSU College of Engineering (Ryan Kopinsky ❤️)
- X3dom, a webGL VR api (Micheal Aratow)
- VR used in the building industry (Damien Hernandez)
And plenty more people that I've met or heard about that I've probably forgotten about.
The open access to equipment we otherwise could not use excites me, it's fun to play around with the cameras, and it's nice to know that we have support to experiment.
Perhaps more important is access to a group of students that are willing to explore the cutting edge, and experience the realities that only emerging technologies make attainable.
I don't really have the time or video production experience to really use them to their highest potential. I feel limited by the media-production focus of the class. I don't think this is the fault of the class, but as a student from elsewhere I'm more interested in producing real-time, computer generated content and experiences, or working on the CGI pipeline for immersive content with special effects.
I really think of immersive media technology as the way to invite our virtual and phsyical spaces to co-exist; to project realities into each-other, and create and share experiences in a new way. Working with video as a medium makes me feel less like the technology can synthesize our communication between virtual and physical realities, and more like it just expands the fov of a lens. With room-scale VR like we find on the HTC Vive, we can really go to other places, where with the camera technology's limitations, we can just peer into other spaces.