A Deep Breath Of Sky is not Augmented Reality (AR) but I may look to this in the future. I am not recreating reality; the audience can see that this is not real, analogue space. I aim to create an abstracted environment that can be used to focus upon specific elements of our relationship with the sky. Abstraction is a tool to observe and explore reality. A Deep Breath of Sky is about our observation and connection with skies both real and recorded. The environment itself and the objects within are abstracted observations.
Immersion and Engagement
The images within the environment (sky-box) go through a number of transitions. The `gallery experience’ of looking at a horizontal image on a wall, the tall vertical landscapes where the viewer has to look up and the arched images which make the viewer look up, over and around to see the whole image. These images share the artist’s experience of looking at and recording skyscapes.
Curved landscape panoramas enclose the viewer and invade the peripheral vision prompting the viewer to move. If they move around the back of the image more landscapes become visible while earlier landscapes move out of sight. Movement is intrinsic to how we view landscapes in the real world not only at specific viewing points but in the transitions between.
The sky-box environment takes the arched panoramas further into a 720-degree dome. It is a painted image that surrounds you; you are embraced within the unreal landscape.
How to choreograph the audience
So how do you manage the movement of the audience within space? Some images require specific movements – look up, look down, turn around but what about movement between the images? Should this be `heavy-handed’ management or light-handed? Where to start the experience? Should you just leave it to the viewer or entice them with a breadcrumb trail to take a certain route?
Tools of choreography
Image placement becomes important – you can tease the viewer to move in a certain direction teasing with glimpses of an image or presenting it in a different form as a landscape or an arch.
Familiar beginnings – When you start the journey you could begin with what they know and what feels familiar and `safe’ like the traditional entrance to a physical gallery. You can then lead them into the unfamiliar and let them explore the unknown.
Sound
I want to add a soundtrack – possibly an overlay of ambient sound – shingle, waves and seagulls.
In specific places within the environment whispered poetry (haiku) will be audible but only when the viewer is standing at a specific point. Once a viewer has found an audio point they can then seek out others while exploring the images.
Other ideas that I am exploring include
- Should there be animation within the environment?
- Should there be changes in the volumetric lighting to reflect the changes in light as time passes?
- Should there be cloud movements?
- What about a night sky?
- I am drawn towards the idea that there should be change over time within the sky-box rather than a static moment. Landscape and sky are not static – the sky-box should change.