Comments on week 8 readings
wow, that was long....
The first reading is a text by Oliver Grau discussing the stages of virtual reality from its beginning to its present status. The reading was interesting, he started off with Monet and the huge paintings he did, in order to bring the viewer closer to the painting, to attempt to submerge him/her in the world he created. He also talks about Prampolini and his polydimensional scenospace, givces us details on the functionning of these machines. I learned about the futurama, the cinéorama....An interesting point that Mr Grau makes at one point is the fact that the world fairs are a good way to present upcoming technology to the mass public, to make them salivate and want something new before it is commmercialized. The "goal is to create a credible and irresistible vision of the future"; if you look at all the technologies presented during these exhibitions, you wil notice that the inage gets bigger and bigger, the technology more complicated, and the space around the image to the human eye smaller.
Another point that I found pertinant was a quick comment in the film stage of the reading when he compared the images given in cinema to the false images in the cave in Plato's text : "Republic: Book 7". I won't go throught all the examples because it is going to take me forever, but I would say that the reading starts off with Monnet, evolves to the film discovery, then we discuss the future computer/human utopia developpped in part by Licklider, important man in the ARPA/DARPA projects. Various examples of current and upcoming technologies are given and their effect on its users. Like the flight and fight simulator used by the US army. The reading was good overall but I felt it was less specific than the ones from the previous weeks, which were more putting the subject in your face and telling you what is going on. This is telling me what happened, a little of what is happening, and what might happened....maybe you were just nice and gave us this reading to remind us what we are studying and knew we were going to be bums during the break :)
link: http://vrlab.epfl.ch/
The first reading is a text by Oliver Grau discussing the stages of virtual reality from its beginning to its present status. The reading was interesting, he started off with Monet and the huge paintings he did, in order to bring the viewer closer to the painting, to attempt to submerge him/her in the world he created. He also talks about Prampolini and his polydimensional scenospace, givces us details on the functionning of these machines. I learned about the futurama, the cinéorama....An interesting point that Mr Grau makes at one point is the fact that the world fairs are a good way to present upcoming technology to the mass public, to make them salivate and want something new before it is commmercialized. The "goal is to create a credible and irresistible vision of the future"; if you look at all the technologies presented during these exhibitions, you wil notice that the inage gets bigger and bigger, the technology more complicated, and the space around the image to the human eye smaller.
Another point that I found pertinant was a quick comment in the film stage of the reading when he compared the images given in cinema to the false images in the cave in Plato's text : "Republic: Book 7". I won't go throught all the examples because it is going to take me forever, but I would say that the reading starts off with Monnet, evolves to the film discovery, then we discuss the future computer/human utopia developpped in part by Licklider, important man in the ARPA/DARPA projects. Various examples of current and upcoming technologies are given and their effect on its users. Like the flight and fight simulator used by the US army. The reading was good overall but I felt it was less specific than the ones from the previous weeks, which were more putting the subject in your face and telling you what is going on. This is telling me what happened, a little of what is happening, and what might happened....maybe you were just nice and gave us this reading to remind us what we are studying and knew we were going to be bums during the break :)
link: http://vrlab.epfl.ch/
posted by Bastien at 3:46 PM
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