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From: brucec%phoebus.labs.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET (Bruce Cohen;;50-662;LP=A;)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: VR in art - medium or instrument?
Message-ID: <11812@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 28 Nov 90 02:49:13 GMT
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My answer to the question is both; I asked it because I've only seen
discussion in this group of VR as performance.  This was the one
disappointment in the posting from Banff a while ago on their VR in the
arts program.

Just to make sure we all agree on the terms, by "medium" I mean that the
artist creates and maintains a virtual reality as a work of art which
others can enter as observers or participants.  This is the same category
of art as interactive fiction.

There's another use of VR which has just been alluded to: using VR
techniques as a set of tools, an instrument so to speak, to help create art
in other media.  This is conceptually similar to using a computer to create
a drawing or a sculpture (or a book or a song ...).  VR gets into the act
as a set of interface technologies which could greatly enhance the ability
of an artist.

Some examples:

Sculpture - I would love to be able to put on a pair of gloves and a
    set of goggles and sculpt marble (or light or water or clouds or ...)
    with my bare hands the way I can sculpt clay.  You could even sculpt
    moving pieces by moving them and marking positions as keyframes, which
    leads to ...

Animation - anyone out there ever do clay figure animation (Will Vinton
    calls it "Claymation" (tm, I think)?  It's extremely tedious to do, and
    good clay with nice colors that won't melt under the lights is
    expensive.  Instead, sculpt your figures (maybe not with your bare
    hands, no reason you can't have have virtual sculpting tools), and move
    the figure around, pushing the virtual shutter release when you have it
    positioned for the next frame.

Music - I think it was Rick Jacoby who mentioned a virtual theremin in one
    of his postings.  There's no reason that a virtual instrument has to
    copy the interface of a physical one, or that it must sound like
    a physical instrument.  You know, there were some neat instruments in
    the old Dr. Seuss books.  I wonder if I could simulate one of them?

Dance - This, of course, has already been done in Videospace.  There must
    be endless fascinating variations which combine elements of dance,
    puppetry, and visual art by using the movements of the dancers to
    create images.  Imagine Mummenschantz or Imago using such technology.

There must be many more ways of using VR as an instrument.  Anyone else
want to toss some out?
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker-to-managers, aka
Bruce Cohen, Computer Research Lab        email: brucec@tekchips.labs.tek.com
Tektronix Laboratories, Tektronix, Inc.                phone: (503)627-5241
M/S 50-662, P.O. Box 500, Beaverton, OR  97077