ISOVISTA

Isovista is an ongoing virtual project covering art, design, and education. Its first iteration was in 1995 and used a 2D multiuser platform called The Palace. Over the years, projects, papers and presentations have been spun off for diverse events like SIGGRAPH, CHI, The William Blake Poetry Symposuim, DiGRA, Sloan-C, Serious Play, and the Arts Festival of Atlanta. This diversity stems from a long history of bridging art and engineering. Early works in virtual poetry and especially virtual poetry performances with shape shifting avatars are the departure point for UX driven VR art gallery design and immersive educational presentations.  In our view, art is data and VR is a medium for sharing it. Art allows for the creative exploration of difficult concepts and is a great starting point for developing practical applications.

Currently, the work is centered on the creation of formal art classes taught in VR on VR design and the presentation of that VR artwork in a VR Gallery.

Go to Isovista.org website


 

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2019 | Presentations & SMEs

A VR presentation on VR and VR art gallery design created for the 2019 Art Teleported Conference in Brooklyn NY. An hour twenty in length, this work doubles as educational material for the online class. This is in VRChat, which isn't truly designed to support this method of presentation, which forces a less interactive approach. Curiously then, the earlier iterations created in VRML (VNet & later Exit Reality) show more design flexibility.

The content covers game design, early cinema and shares example galleries. It's likely too much information for the audience. Nothing overly complex, yet its a challenge for folks. The final two images (far right) are from a new, separate space that introduces VR gallery design through a videogame mash up of gallery and starbase. Summer 2019 SME's from the University of Moscow-Idaho & University of Baltimore are working with me to edit / refine these materials

VIDEO - Full Presentation (not editted / refined - yet)





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2016 - 2018 | Internships

Game design students from the University of Baltimore and the University of Moscow, Idaho participated in 8-week internship classes. In a VRChat classroom, interns were first presented with VR art history and design theory. After discussion and concept sketches, interns modeled their own virtual sculptural installations. In addition to the classes and modeling work, some team members helped present past work at the Escape Velocity 2018 conference and participated in a live class session demo at the 2018 Serious Play conference.

Upcoming events are being planned. Their artwork is slated for (and influences the design of) the next Isovista Art Gallery. Interns are also pursuing individual opportunities to present their work. Images are screen captures of live weekly VR critique sessions.


 





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Play Video

 

2014 - 2016 | Special Topic Class & Internship

Started as a Special Topic class for the Art Institute of Pittsburgh - Online Division, then continued as an Internship, this project explored virtual art and virtual gallery design. Students created artwork and discussed the ongoing design of the Isovista Web3D gallery. Originally built in Jibe / Unity, this was adapted for Google Cardboard, and is currently live in VRChat. Interns participated in live Q & A sessions at the 2015 DIGRA conference and the 2016 Serious Play conference.





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Play - Class Usage (Part 1)

Play - Class Usage (Part 2)

Play - Darwin Video (Part 1, Part 2 coming)

  2004 - 2014 | SIGGRAPH & Early Years

The history of Isovista begins with my work in the design of classrooms and art galleries. Both spaces are designed to share information within a social setting. Both spaces confront issues of travel, ownership, and presentation. The images here show my first classroom design, an early presentation on Charles Darwin, and later iterations of the classroom and gallery that lead up to the 2014 work. The blending of 2D and 3D elements in the presentations may seem obvious, but please try a Google search for anything remotely similardone in Second Life, Active Worlds, VRChat etc. Additionally, the transitions between slides are not decorative. Users in 3D environments expect to move about and interact with the world and these transition elements are meant to hold their attention. This approach does need development, but is far better than the widely used alternative - locking students into faux 3D desks.