1. Immersive Media/ Virtual Reality Part 1
Celia Pearce
lcc4730
Fall 2007

2. What is a computer? A calculator (computation)
A tool (computer-aided design, word processing)
A medium (Marshall McLuhan, Alan Kay)

3. 1. an intermediate state or condition halfway between two extremes
2. one of the means of mass communication such as television, radio, or newspapers
3. a means of conveying ideas or information
4. a substance through which something is carried or transmitted
5. somebody who is supposedly able to convey messages between the spirits of the dead and living people
6. the means by which something is carried out or achieved
7. any form of material on which data is stored or printed, for example, paper, tape, or disk
8. a substance in which specimens of animals and plants are preserved or mounted
9. See culture medium
10. a substance or the environment in which an organism naturally lives or grows
11. a method that an artist uses or a category such as sculpture in which an artist works
12. the materials that an artist uses in creating a work
13. a solvent mixed with a pigment or paint to make it thinner
any of several similar sizes of paper, especially 47 cm by 58.5 cm /18.5 in. by 23 in
Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
What is a medium?

4. Early Experiments w/ Computers

5. Recreational Technology/Hobby Culture
Spacewar! (1961)
First fully implemented computer game
MIT Model Railroad Club/Steve "Slug" Russell
DEC Digital PDP-1

6. “Medium” for Creation
"A display connected to a digital computer gives us a chance to gain familiarity with concepts not realizable in the physical world. It is a looking glass into a mathematical wonderland."
– Ivan Sutherland
Sketchpad (1963)
Ivan Sutherland’s Ph.D. Thesis
First “computer graphics” application
Allowed you to draw directly on the screen with a stylus

7. Virtual Reality
"The ultimate display would, of course, be a room within which the computer can control the existence of matter. A chair displayed in such a room would be good enough to sit in. Handcuffs displayed in such a room would be confining, and a bullet displayed in such room would be fatal. With appropriate programming such a display could literally be the Wonderland into which Alice walked.”
—Ivan Sutherland
Head-Mounted Display, Ivan Sutherland ( )
First “virtual reality” system
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8. Virtual Reality Jaron Lanier Scott Fisher, VR Simulation
for NASA, 1980s
To be continued next week…

9. Human Computer Interaction
ALTO Computer
Designed at Xerox PARC in 1973
128k RAM, 608x808 screen, 2.5MB removable hard disk and built-in Ethernet.
About 1,000 in use by 1979
Was the model for the Apple computer GUI
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10. Computer Animation

11. Oskar Fischinger's color organ (1960’s)
Lumigraph
Oskar Fischinger's color organ (1960’s)

12. John Whitney “Motion Graphics” (1917-1995)
John and James Whitney with their mechanical analog computer animating device, modified from an M-5 Antiaircraft Gun Director
“Vertigo,” 1958
John Whitney
( )

13. “Composition”
John Whitney
<video>

14. Larry Cuba Aesthetic Computing http://www.well.com/~cuba/
First Fig (1974)
3/78 - Objects and Transformations (1978)
<Two Space (1979)
Calculated Movements (1985)
Larry Cuba

15. Computer Animation 1979 to 1986- “The Works”
First attempt at animated feature
Computer Graphics Laboratory (1974 to 1992)
New York Institute of Technology

16. Computer Animation “Tron” (Disney, 1982)
Information International Inc. of Culver City, CA
MAGI of Elmsford, NY
Robert Abel and Associates of California
Digital Effects of New York City

17. “Luxo, Jr.” (Pixar Studios, 1986)
Computers in Film
“Luxo, Jr.” (Pixar Studios, 1986)

18. “Waking Life” (Richard Linklater, 2001)
Computer Rotoscope
“Waking Life” (Richard Linklater, 2001)

19. Interactivity

20. “Artificial Reality”
Video Place
Myron Krueger, 1960s-1980s

21. Visualization Electronic Visualization Lab (1973-present)
University of Illinois, Chicago
Thomas A. DeFanti, Daniel J. Sandin
(Filmed by Phil Morgan, aka “Cross-Eye”)
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22. Visualization The CAVE (1992)
The CAVE (1992)
Carolina Cruz-Neira, Thomas A. DeFanti, Daniel J. Sandin
Application: Dana Plepys

23. Scientific Visualization
Quaternion Julia Sets in Virtual Reality (1989)
Electronic Visualization Lab (EVL)
John Hart, Maggie Rawlings
Maxine Brown, Thomas A. DeFanti, Louis H. Kauffman, Daniel J. Sandin

24. Performance Augmentation
The Catherine Wheel (Twyla Tharp & David Byrne, 1982)
Bush Soul (#1), 1992
Rebecca Allen

25. Interactivity
Aspen Movie Map, MIT

26. Visual Expression
Joan Truckenbrod

27. Visual Expression
Male=Female
Margot Lovejoy

28. Visual Expression
Joan Truckenbrod

29. Interactivity
Ken Perlin