Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, chief designer of the facility, composer, and media artist with over thirty filve years of experience in media systems engineering, outlines the vision for our research.
The Brave and the Brilliant. The 40th anniversary of our founding, to celebrate creativity, ingenuity, courage, wisdom and generosity. Vancouver, Canada
Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, chief designer of the facility, composer, and media artist with over thirty filve years of experience in media systems engineering, outlines the vision for our research.
How can one find patterns in complex information and work with this information creatively and intuitively leading to new and unique innovation? Building our computational language and representing very complex information through our senses, visual and audio representations, will facilitate the uncovering of new patterns in this information and allow scientists and engineers to work with their data perceptually and intuitively, the way that artists do.
In this installation, explore the complex worlds of quantum mechanics, fractals, and spring mass equations that move like fabric.
Experience a selection of three immersive works bridging Art/Science from the AlloSphere Research Group:
Chancellor Henry T. Yang & Dilling Yang inside the AlloSphere
There is a team of us researchers at the
AlloSphere Research Facility, we are artists,
scientists and engineers and we have found
a way to work together creatively
in order to explore complex systems
In this installation, explore with us the worlds of quantum mechanics,
fractals, and spring mass equations that move like fabric.
In the world of the quantum, the hydrogen-like atom’s electron is guided around the nucleus of the hydrogen atom like currents in the oceanthat produce various waves on its surface. We explore combinations of these wave functions by programming a visual/sonic “ribbon”
that coils among the quantum currents to visibly show these waveform combinations. As you walk through this narrative your movement generates small atoms like water droplets emanating from the quantum sea.
Fractals abound in nature. Pinecones, succulents, ice and snow, tree Branches, copper crystals, rivers, and leaf veins, all unfold in a series of repeating patterns with every part of the fractal looking similar to the whole shape. Fractals can be represented mathematically. The most famous is the Mandelbrot equation. Be immersed in the 4D Mandelbrot and explore the beauty of higher dimensional worlds.
Fabric explores the movements of a spring mass equation and is one general model for cloth simulation. This narrative facilitates playful exploration of the movements of cloth, releasing gravity as one spreads a blanket into the air, and it lightly falls with the gravitational pull. Hearing the strings of the fabric as it pulls and tears sounding as a large string instrument. Fabric explores full body interaction.
Lead Artist – Composer, Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, creator of Etherial, is Director and Chief Scientist of the AlloSphere Research Facility http://www.allosphere.ucsb.edu/ and Professor of Media Arts and Technology and Music, in the California NanoSystems Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Her research focuses on creative computational systems, content, and facilities design. Her 35 years of experience in digital media research led to the creation of a multi-million dollar sponsored research program for the University of California—the Digital Media Innovation Program. She was Chief Scientist of the Program from 1998 to 2003. The culmination of her creativity and research is the AlloSphere, a 30-foot diameter, 3-story high metal cylinder inside an echo-free cube, designed for immersive/interactive scientific/artistic investigation of multi-dimensional data sets.
Tim Wood – Distributed Multimedia Software Design, AlloSphere Media Systems Engineer, AlloSphere Research Facility, University of California Santa Barbara, PhD in Media Arts & Technology, Wood's expertise includes ... multimedia systems design. http://www.allosphere.ucsb.edu/html/people.html.
Kon Hyong Kim – Graphics Researcher/Artist, Calibration, Spatial Augmented Reality (SAR) Research, Creator of the SAR Installation Environment. Kon Hyong Kim is currently a Ph.D. student in the MAT and a member of the AlloSphere Research Group. Kim’s research focuses on the analysis and application of advanced graphics rendering and calibration techniques, including the integration of Spatial Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality technologies. http://www.allosphere.ucsb.edu/html/people.html.
Gustavo Rincon – Architectural Design Researcher/Media Artist, Fabricator, Graphics Immersive Artist, Creator of the material-rendered sculpture: Gustavo Alfonso Rincon is educated as an architect, visual artist and currently is a Ph.D. student in the Graduate Program in the Media Arts and Technology (MAT) at UCSB, and a member of the AlloSphere Research Group. He holds Masters Degrees in Architecture/Urban Design from UCLA as well as a Masters in Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts. http://w2.mat.ucsb.edu/grincon.
Dennis Adderton – Technical Director, AlloSphere Research Facility
Much thanks to the members of the AlloSphere Research Group for the design and development of the AlloLib software.
Keywords:
immersive multi-modal installation, interactive immersive,multimedia art work, immersive multi-modal multimedia system installation
Software:
The AlloLib software system is open source software design by the AlloSphere Research Group and licensed by the Regents of the University of California on GitHub (https://github.com/AlloSphere-Research-Group/allolib).
JoAnn Kuchera-Morin demos the AlloSphere, a new way to see, hear and interpret scientific data. Dive into the brain, feel electron spin, hear the music of the elements ... and detect previously unseen patterns that could lead to new discoveries.
