Was once the closest the inside got to the outside was through the creeping of floral patterns onto the living room wallpaper. Penetrating the membrane of the conservatory wall the landscape data feeds now seep into a different kind of fantasy world. The domestic consumption and immersive qualities of the game engine enable a different engagement with the landscape out there in here. This is not a ‘Virtual World’ constructed on the screen, but something more akin to an environmental dashboard or an Albertian window, but with a different kind of perspective. Something like standing in the rain looking at your mobile phones weather forecast, it is raining, you are getting wet, but somehow the digital representation doesn’t feel like that.

Visualising and sonifying the data harvested from the landscape is an essential component of i-DAT’s Operating Systems. Normally the preoccupation is with FullDome immersive environments (Dome-OS) ), as a transdisciplinary instrument for the manifestation of material, immaterial and imaginary worlds. A credible tool for the rendering of these interactive real-time visualisations is the game engine, in particular Blender and Unity 3D. In this workshop the weapon of choice is Unity 3D mainly because, although not open source, it offers a rapid production pathway. For the FullDome environment the use of a FullDome/Fisheye library is required but here the flat screen representation will be used. Feeds from the Ecoids will be read into the game engine template allowing simple interactions and visualisations. Alternative feeds (xml formatted) can also be incorporated.

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Patch-Scape

Workshop for the DLA Conference 2013 6-8 June Bernberg, Germany.

Nadia Amoroso, DataAppeal, Andrew Hudson-Smith, University College London, Mike Phillips, Plymouth University, Chris Speed, University of Edinburgh & Katharine Willis, Plymouth University.

Abstract

(Latour 2005:242)

The Patch-Scape workshop offers a challenging but playful opportunity for participants to generate spatial, social and environmental data derived from the landscape and manage it’s transposition into a series of representational modes using digital technology. Using the Patch-Scape Digital Switchboard, the workshop explores the potential to transpose different data sets into a different 2D and 3D forms.