Experimental Video Game

I just came across this video of an experimental video game (if it can be considered a game?) called Night Journey. It's a video/art project of an individual that travels across a certain landscape with no actual destination, but with the function of reflecting on things that are found in this digital landscape. The website describes the game as a video experiment in finding 'enlightenment'. I don't think I've seen anything like this in a video game, but I'd be interested to how successful it could be with this purpose. What's equally interesting is the effort to make digital space poetic, not geographical as it's almost always intended to do. Quite possibly, digital modeling has maxed itself out in terms of geographic perfection. Weather conditions, lighting, texture, just about everything (except maybe the human body) are almost perfectly represented in video games. Just have a look at how this game starts to give new meaning to digital space.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas, this year. Best wishes to all!

At the moment, I'm having an extended recovery from finals with a glass of egg nog, some clementines, and a plate of rum balls on the table. Ahh, the life of being home again...

Christmas was extremely generous this year. I got a fencing foil which I've been waving around the house hysterically. Paddy has been getting most of the blunt end of my urge to stab things. Can't wait to get back at it in January. Also got some archie books: 'Fragments: Architecture and the Unfinished', by Robin Middleton, 'Space, Time and Architecture' by Siegfried Giedion. Also, mum's trip down to Traverse City to partake in the indulgence of western capitalism on 'Black Friday' scored me a new juicer. Woot!

Mark and Shashi are keeping their feet up and stomachs filled with holiday feasts at our place on their couple weeks of holidays. Uncle Mark went out on his first ski trip today, surviving a few falls. They head back to Gloucestershire on the 5th.

All the while, I'm not quite finished the semester, as I'm still trying to crank out a pre-thesis essay (15-pager). The general topic is fragmentation, hence the book by Middleton. However, the wonderful distractions of royal feasts, seeing friends and relatives is slowing things down a bit. No panic; enjoy home while I'm here.

Finals went well. When I get this essay out of the way, I'll put up some images of the presentation work.

Final Countdown

One week today until crits! Let the Final Countdown begin!!!!!

Panoramas

I've just discovered this neat little software tool which allows amazing photographic panoramas. PTgui is a sophisticated program which you pop in a certain number of photos and it automatically stitches them all together. It has incredible architectural implications because you can create elevational photographs out of inaccessible viewpoints, improving on the fragmented effect of overlapping individual images, and saving lots of time. It also allows you to create VR "lookthroughs" of spaces (i.e. single point perspective at centre of semi-sphere or full sphere). Have a look at some of the ones I've created for the Gesù Church as well as some from Ireland. Unfortunately, Blogger doesn't support the VR videos (or I haven't figured out how to post them) so you'll have to ask me to send them to you if you're interested.







This last image (as well as the one before the fish-eye image) are impossible views of the side elevation. I should be well inside the neighbouring buildings. Just from taking pictures from a single point on the ground level in all different directions, the program figures out how to stitch the images together. This can have a major implication on photographic documentation of buildings, in addition to the touristic novelty: