Virtual Unreality: The Modulation of Time, Space and Energy.

R.D.Brown

Royal College of Art, CRD, Kensington Gore, London SW7 2EU.

Tel: 0171 584 5020 ext 263 Fax: 0171 589 8107 EMail: r.brown@rca.ac.uk

This paper proposes that the boundaries of virtual reality may be challenged by the creation of tools that enable an alternative to simulating perceived reality. Early 20th century artists exploring abstraction, cubism and the concept of a fourth dimension are seen as inspirational in proposing alternative views of so called reality, and in turn, suggesting new tools for constructing unrealities.

Keywords: fourth dimension, art, non-Euclidean space, time.

1. Art as a mode of enquiry

Art as a mode of enquiry in combination with concepts of a fourth dimension may be seen as a method by which the virtual reality paradigm of modelling reality may be challenged. The very term virtual reality presumes an underlying understanding of what reality might be.

The creation of a digital medium that matches our sensory bandwidth is being used as with most new technologies to simulate the familiar. The history of this interactive 3d graphics technology, labelled with the buzz word virtual reality, (vr), has its roots in computer aided design and flight simulation - both fields associated with the mathematical simulation of Euclidean based objects and phenomena based on physical laws. In the early 20th century, the concept of non-Euclidean space, Minkowski space-time and Einstein's theory of relativity changed our perception of reality. Non-Euclidean space implies in effect that the very fabric of our world may curve, with the implication that the shortest distance between two points may in fact not be a line, similar in effect to the realisation of the earth being round. In Minkowski space-time, time was conceived as continuous extra dimension, resulting in the notion that reality consists of a series of frames of space, set out along a time dimension. In turn, the idea of an extra dimension, be it time or an invisible spatial dimension perpendicular to normal space, became known amongst artist, writers and the general populace as the fourth dimension. Artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Malevich, Mondrian, Kandinsky and Lissitsky were inspired by the existence of a fourth dimension, exploring representations of time, multidimensional space, the meaning of colour and form, striving towards higher dimensions than could not be achieved by simply mimicking reality.

"Then must come the creation of an absolutely new art: cosmic art (vaporisation of sculpture), syno-sense theatre. The total conquest of the art of 4d space (a Vacuum artis until now). Rigid material is abolished and replaced by gaseous materials." Sirato, Charles (1936)

In Tertium Organum by P.D. Ouspensky (1921) there is a call for recognition not only of higher spaces, but a recognition of our place in that perception of reality, taking on board Kantian notions of an a-priori perceptual space-time apparatus that fundamentally construes our perception and understanding of reality. Kant believed that causality and our notions of time are created by sensory mechanisms that defined the very things we take for granted as being out there - in reality.

I seek to use the medium of interactive real-time 3d graphics (vr) to express similar ideals, and in the same manner as the 20th century artists, break the paradigm of representing reality as we conceive it to be.

The challenge is to explore the medium in order to create multidimensional sensory events that could not exist in, and also bear little resemblance to so called "reality". In order to realise these ideals, current vr models and tools need to be examined and challenged with the aim of creating alternative paradigms for manipulating virtual space.

2. An alternative paradigm

Before commencing to speculate on an alternative paradigm, I will briefly state my interpretation of the current virtual reality model and why it is limiting when one considers modelling forms inspired by ideas of a fourth dimension.

2.1 The virtual reality model

Virtual reality is based on the simulation of objects in cartesian (x,y,z) space. A virtual camera is created that follows the laws of perspective in order to produce a viewing plane by which the 3d space may be seen. Objects are generally defined as surfaces, comprised of planes or polygons and are stored as hierarchical structures within an object list. To achieve a sense of reality, surfaces are treated to produce convincing optical effects, texturing, light reflection etc. Objects are often originated as CAD models and imported into the vr environment to reside in display lists, with the only expectations that a camera may fly around the object or that the object may translate or rotate as a whole within the 3D space.

The outline above, though not totally explicit, is generally taken up in both 3D hardware (eg display lists, z buffering) and software, from the application progam interface (eg OpenGL) through to the modelling package and is further taken up in 3D internet browsers via VRML (virtual reality modelling language). With an interest in creating forms that are inspired by the fourth dimension, this model soon exhibits inherent limitations.

2.2 Modelling based on a fourth dimension

There is much work in multidimensional mathematics, including computer visualisations of four dimensional objects such as the hypercube, the earliest being Banchoff (1978), whilst more recent hyperspace animations (Burbanks 1996) can be found on the Internet. On a simplistic level, it can be said that these models all inherit the behavior of changing their form, in three dimensions, over time. Within current vr, an object changes its representational form in the two dimensions of the viewing plane, whilst retaining its overall form in the hidden and simulated three dimensional space. Animation generally consists of the object moving in three dimensions whilst retaining its inherent form. The modelling of forms that change structure in 3D space over time or according to interactions, such as "blobby forms" within current vr is a non trivial task due to the modelling assumptions as outlined in 2.1 above.

The facilities I would wish to be able to explore within an alternative vr environment would encompass the multiple dimensions of space, time and energy. I would expect that a form would not remain static within three dimensions, but would change over time or via interactions with the viewer or other forms. I would see the axis of time as flexible and not a linear path as defined via conventional animation techniques. Energy could be regarded as another dimension to an object, whereby forces of attraction and repulsion govern the form and behaviour of an object.

A parallel model to the type of control mechanism I envisage may be found in early analogue sound synthesisers. Here, the operator has a realtime flexibility in controlling the form of the sound being generated - frequency, pitch, timbre, filtering, colouration, amplitude, a set of time based controllers, the ability to patch operators and processors are all under the operator's control at any time.

The key element that a synthetic approach of this type would bring is the ability to manipulate and control the changing of form both over time and in real time. It is this aspect that I relate to the concept of a fourth dimension, the changing of material, shape and behaviour in the dimension of time. The control and interaction of change over time may be connected to the concept of energy, low energy implies slow change, high energy greater rates of change. Altering the dimensions of space, time and energy in the dimension of time I label modulation, after the light space modulator created by Moholy Nagy (1921), a device for projecting changing non-representational light forms. The ability to control visual form in a similar manner as sound is controlled in the analogue sound synthesiser, a space, time and energy modulator would enable an operator to dynamically control the creation, behaviour and interaction of forms in both space and time.

3. Summary

The medium of vr enables both the visualisation of higher dimensions and provides a means for interaction within multidimensional space; providing a potential for new artistic expression as well as feeding into alternative methods of interacting with "soft 3d space".

Interactive vr offers a platform for experimenting and changing our preconceptions of everyday reality, a means perhaps by which new insights and perceptions may be gained into our role as both perceiver and definer of reality.

The concept of the fourth dimension invokes the idea of changing form over time. The ability to control space and the extra dimensions of time and energy, in a manner akin to the analogue synthesiser, may provide an alternative and richer method by which vr may be used creatively. However, due to the inherent assumptions within current vr, the contemporary artist seeking to push the limits of the vr medium will need to use mathematics encapsulated in programming in order to program the technology, abandoning the tools of the simulcrae in order to create an alternative platform for higher visions of both reality and art. Art needs to know no boundaries, as the medium of interactive networked 3D space develops, traditional real world designers may also need to develop alternative ways of looking at and manipulating the soft medium of vr where the rules of the physical universe need no longer apply.

4. References

Banchoff: Computer Animation and the Geometry of Surfaces in 3- and 4-Space, Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians, Helsinki (1978), (Invited 45 minute address), 1005-1013.

Burbanks, A and Beardmore, K. "Hyperspace Structures", Electronic text, April 1996. <URL: http://info.lut.ac.uk/departments/ma/Gallery/hyper.html>

Nagy, Laszlo Moholy. Light-Space Modulator, kinetic sculpture capable of projecting changing light forms, 1921-1930.

Ouspensky, P.D. "Tertium Organum", , Routledge & Kegan Paul 1970 (translated from the Russian original 1921)

Sirato, Charles. "The Manifeste Dimensioniste" Revue N+1, 1936, cited in "The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art", Linda Dalrymple Henderson, Princeton University Press, 1983.