The Pavilion << Into the 21st Century>>

Pavilion 21

"With the computer, and brought together in the telematic embrace, we can hope to glimpse the unseeable, to grasp the ineffable chaos of becoming, the secret order of disorder."

– Roy Ascott

Our project team is currently developing a networked installation, Pavilion 21, inspired by the Pepsi Pavilion, at the NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The project is a collaboration between multimedia artist Randall Packer, NASA optical engineer Joseph Howard, artist-engineer Wesley Smith, and installation designer Gregory Kuhn. Together we are designing a system that extends the 3D imaging and surround-sound reverberance of the spherical mirror dome to the virtual space of the Internet.

Real Image	Mirror Dome

The purpose of the project is twofold: (1) a tribute to the spirit of collaboration between the artist and the engineer, as exemplified in the historical achievement of the original Pepsi Pavilion created by E.A.T. in the late 1960s: (2) a laboratory, showcase, and critical forum for researching and advancing the potential and future of social interaction in the experience of networked art.

The culmination of five years of research and study of the Pepsi Pavilion, the project is, like the original, an exploration of the non-hierarchical social dynamics brought about through the collective participation of the audience. The essential feature drawn from the original, the 210-degree spherical mirror, invites the viewer to individually and collectively explore an environment of reflected imagery and reverberant sound, and participate in the composition of the visual and aural experience. In order to advance the collective nature of the original Pepsi Pavilion, in which mirror images of the viewer were produced in a habitable space 90 feet in diameter, Pavilion 21 extends this idea through a system in which viewers are united locally and on-line in the virtual, electronic space of the network.

Inside mirror dome	Camera & projection system

The physical installation, located in a darkened space, situates the mirror dome on a platform with 12' by 9' rear projection screens erected on two sides. The screens display imagery broadcast from the interior dome. Additionally, the dome resides on top of a shallow pool of water, reflecting imagery cast from the screens as well as the translucent surface of the mirror dome.

Inside the mirror dome, approximately 3 feet in diameter, a liquid crystal display (LCD) projects imagery, while a miniature, remote-controllable camera captures the “real image” reflections. Viewers (onsite and online) can collectively and simultaneously upload digital audio/visual objects to the installation where they are rendered and processed as an evolving, multi-layered collage of floating, transparent images and reverberant sound.

Imagery and sound is processed in real-time, using Max/MSP/Jitter software, and subjected to digital transformations and effects under the control of each viewer. The local audience will have the ability to control camera position such that they serve as the local "eyes" of the on-line viewer. Sounds are processed in a “virtual mirror,” where reverberance and deflection is modeled using an "impulse response" algorithm, emulating the acoustics of the original dome, and giving the illusion of immersion in a large, mirror space.

Collaged images	Collage of interior/exterior (transparent dome)

The phenomenon of bridging the physical space of the installation with the distributed medium of the Internet dissolves the distinction between local and virtual viewer. As a result, the demarcation between physical and virtual space, between on-line and local proximity converges and blurs into a shared participatory experience through image, sound and our attention to its transformational and spatial properties. Images, light, sound, communication, movement, and peer-to-peer, viewer interaction will travel freely back and forth between the real and the virtual, such that the distinction between the two unite in a collective "third space."

Live stream from the Pavilion (for research, not always in use)