Char Davies - VR

Char Davies' Osmose is still just an "ordinary" VR while already being a bridge to more...

From Davies' Ephémère

What is the meaning of the paintings in the caves of Lascaux?

Char Davies, Tree, from Osmose, 1995.

Digital image captured in real-time
through head-mounted display during
live performance.

Char Davies, Seeds, from Ephémère, 1998.

Digital image captured in real-time
through head-mounted display during live immersive journey/performance.

Giulio Camillo (1480-1544)

The following is a description which discusses the nature of interaction within a particular memory theater, from the book Theatregarden Beastarium as expressed by Chris Dercon:

A spectator would sit at a central location inside a portable wooden structure which contained seven groupings of information, each accessible from seven different levels. The viewer would engage with an environment designed to reveal secrets about the structure of the universe, from the realm of the microcosmic to that of the macrocosmic. On the walls of the Theatro Del Mundo were inscribed all of the signs and symbols of the Christian Renaissance: the stars, the planets, the Greek gods and their attributes, animals and plants, the elements and their alchemical symbols, the temperaments, the vices and virtues. The theatre also contained wooden drawers filled with written texts that combined all of these elements within a "universal book." Viewers made choices from a central location, which enabled them to explore information housed in containers in close proximity to the participant. The room was organised in tiers which grouped information that dealt with questions of the universe, expanding upon innumerable aspects of creation. (Dercon 1990)

Char Davies' "breathing and balance interface" used in the performance of virtual reality environments Osmose (1995) and Ephémère (1998), image courtesy of Char Davies.

Is VR the new Memory Theatre?

There is a palpable continuity across the ages which reminds one of the connection drawn from the Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy to the scenario of modern cosmology by a physicist from Basel, Switzerland — Gustav Andreas Tammann. [106] Mythology is still directly below the surface and so is the immersion of cyberspace. The modern immersion of Osmose comes to mind as well. We are working toward defining a new memory theater that combines features of Osmose (Char Davies) with Spielberg's intelligence of a future. Driving back and forth within the mind, and driving back and forth between the ages is almost the same thing.