Design Informatics Webinar

Mike Phillips presents:

The thing’s hollow it goes on forever and oh my God it’s full of stars!*

Fulldome is a place “where all the different kinds of truths fit together” (Vonnegut, 2006, p7). Its ability to break down disciplinary boundaries extends beyond its popularity as a vehicle for large data visualisations. It is a transdisciplinary instrument for the manifestation of (im)material, and imaginary worlds. Since the turn of the century there has been a concerted effort to liberate this infinite space from the hegemony of the STEM subjects. This spatial-temporal bubble is a polysensory anomaly that sits, for the most part, outside the usual canons of media technologies and associated art forms. A scientific instrument combined with a roller coaster, the Fulldome has a post hoc ergo propter hoc relationship with Virtual Reality, it suddenly makes sense when explained as a ‘shared’ Virtual Reality, and part of its liberation has been the convergence of production pathways and technologies which have built on XR practices.

*Clarke, A., 2001 : A Space Odyssey. Hachette Digital (2010 [1968]). pp198.

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