Outside Reality

Hello! 

This digital exhibition is my bachelor work. With the help of my tutors and my friends I was able to make this happen. Also cheers to University Kassel, that I even had the opportunity to make an experimental digital exhibition. The following text is more of a journey through my thoughts about the process of creating, rather than a plain description.

The background
At first I was very interested in point clouds and their dreamy aesthetic, as well as their behavior on screen. The closer you get to a point cloud, the smaller the points become. I was also wondering how it would look without any VR experience. My goal was to create an experimental digital room with point clouds. As an architect, a game enthusiast and a sound designer, I created this special piece of work. It was from the beginning intentional to create something personal yet relatable and different. Even though it is officially labeled as a bachelor's work, it was my personal desire to see this project as a shareable object, for friends and everyone else who'd like to go through the experience. 
In this manifesto, I summarize pretty much everything I wanted to do:

original:
"Ich möchte einen digitalen Raum erzeugen, mich räumlich ausdrücken können, simultan Raum hinterfragen, spielerisch ein Erlebnisraum für eine Person schaffen. Als Film oder als Spiel. Gefühle auslösen. Der Raum ist meine Leinwand, interaktiv, bewegend, dynamisch, atmend, morphend. Ich suche nach neuen Grenzen. Umzugehen, zu tauchen und zu fliegen. Zieh mir eine VR-Brille an."

english:
"I want to create a digital space, be able to express myself spatially, question space simultaneously, playfully create an experiential space for one person. As a film or as a game. Evoke emotions. The space is my canvas, interactive, moving, dynamic, breathing, morphing. I am searching for new boundaries. To navigate, to dive, and to fly. Put a VR headset on me."

The development
Without any knowledge of Unity or other game software, I was busy for the first weeks learning a good basis of the program so I could express my creativity without any digital/software boundaries (or as few as possible). YouTube-tutorials were my best friends, and I was also partly involved in a VR seminar.
Moreover, I participated in a university seminar where I learned about photogrammetry methods. I learned that every method of scanning rooms and places has its own individual signature, which is crucial for the use of an atmospheric digital exhibition.

The scenario
The exhibition takes place in an oversized compost, which can be interpreted as a memory-hoarding place where pieces of certain places get stored in a distorted and very subjective way. I liked the idea of point clouds representing memories of places because of the similar behavior of point clouds and memories. You think you can remember certain places well, but as you get closer, they become blurrier. I also distorted the memories in a way I imagine remembering the places.

The trees on the other hand are something special in this artwork. I couldn't manifest the beauty of trees in a simple scan, next to "human"-architecture. The feelings i have for nature are majestic and limitless.  So I made them gigantic and untouchable. Worked for me.

Architectural influence and criticism:
Some places I've chosen and distorted have certain patterns; others don't and are quite random (as random as it gets when you choose to scan something in your local area). They are mainly what I would call artificial spaces—rooms created by humans. By placing the rooms in another environment, I disconnect them from their original context. As an architect, I know that rooms always create a dialogue between people and the environment. I experimented with this idea and put them into something unusual. Now the rooms speak more clearly about themselves and can't hide behind their environmental facade. Through this, I also criticize design concepts and choices. Things we see daily, like "in your face - DON'T GO THERE" stop signs. We, humans, are really good at ignoring things and over time we can totally dull things out. Of course, stop signs have their logical meaning, but is this how we want to design our environment? I don't. When I look out of my window, these signs are the only colorful objects, and all the buildings are hiding behind the brown/gray and flat architecture. I think this is something to think of.

At the end decide for yourself. That's why this work is a game and not a text or even a film. Thanks for reading.

General information

game engine: Unity
scans: scaniverse, 3Df Zephyr
sound: ableton
VR: occulus quest 2