The Escherian Metro- Polis of a Kafkish citizen in Pambia

Imagine a huge sponge, as the space to live in, without though having conscience of this presence in this exact space. This place works as a metaphor for an organic everything, part of which we all are (PAMBIA, word formed after Paggaia, the initial geological formulation from which the five continents of our planet derive). The people dwelling in Pambia are everyday commuters in the thousands of tubes this huge sponge has. But they don’t see the place they cross through, as they only have vision of the tube they are in. Sometimes it comes a point where or when (?) one finds oneself at an active point, a point in the Timespace, wherewhen the tube opens to a moving spacestructure. One can wander there till (s)he finds another active point opening to another tube. "Commutation" goes on, the environment slighty changes, the next moving structure waits to be found. But is there any possibility for the commuters to have the general view of PAMBIA? This is a work for the space, the real (πραγμα-τικός) one in the virtual (εικονικός) one, the virtual the coming from the real, trying to uncover the not forgotten one (α-ληθινός).

Hello from Voula!

I will be happy to collaborate with you all in the DELPHUS 2010 PROJECT, in our adventure from real-to-virtual and from virtual-to-real.

I will be representing the teaching stuff of the Athens School of Fine Arts and will work with you on the Delphus platform.

I would be most grateful if you could all introduce yourselves by sending a small entry to this BLOG.

Soon, you will get more information from me personally and from our team - our ideas and thoughts about this seminar.

We are expecting yours too!

DELPHUS PROJECT 2010 :

From the real to the virtual and from the virtual to the real

Working Schedule: every Professor according to their area of interest will have the responsibility for one seminar and one team of students that will work with them. This will allow them to lead the students either from the real to the virtual (eg. Video seminar) or from the virtual to the real (eg virtools or 3D seminar)

A preparatry work must start from now so that the students can be prepared.

The seminar will be based on a double approach: artistic and technological. This is why the participant students must have knowledge of both of these aspects.

The basic platform which will host the works of the students is the internet platform developed at the previous seminar. The platform is an application created with Virtools software. [www.3ds.com/products/3dvia/3dvia-virtools/]

In the platform can be integrated 3d objects, videos and any other application for web as an external link. The technical specifications for the integration of the different projects in the Platform will be given at the start of the seminar.

In this context I suggest 5 laboratories:


> Creation lab A Virtual worlds (in the www)

> Creation lab B Virtual world objects (synthetic images 2d, 3d )

> Creation lab C From real word to virtual (video, photography)

> Creation lab D From ideas to virtual world (poly-scenarios)

> Creation lab E Body and virtual world

Valuation of the accomplished work concerning the Delphus 3.0 technical platform

Towards the implementation and demonstration of the Delphus 3.0 platform two groups have worked on different directions, but with continuous interaction and the results were being merged day by day:

-Athens School of Fine Arts group constructed basic conceptual elements (with video and 3D technologies) and proposed arbitrary semantic hierarchies and their mapping to a simple relational database model. It was not feasible to go deeper in semantic descriptions and technologies during the seminar. However, the proposed scripting interface with the database is open to support any semantic technology in the future.
-Paris-8 group, an expert in virtual spaces and 3D technologies, proposed state-of-the-art solutions and finally undertook the hard task of developing an open platform of semantically linked objects, based on the conceptual requirements expressed through discussions between the two groups. The implementation was such that the code is clean and the platform is easily extensible towards any direction.

The implementation of such a platform was based on the following multilayer architecture:

More specifically, the role of each layer is the following:

- Layer 1: palette of primitive elements - This layer is a library of basic elements (3D shapes, materials, textures, behaviours, etc) that can be chosen to define conceptual objects.
- Layer 2: (hierarchical) object tagging and database storage – In this layer conceptual objects are linked to form semantic hierarchies, in the sense of very simple “ontologies”. This information is mapped to a relational database.
- Layer 3: rule-based synthesis and complex structures storage – In this layer, conceptual objects from the same or different hierarchies can be interlinked to form more complex structures, which can be stored in the database as new object definitions.
- Layer 4: conceptual navigation, interaction and searching – This layer provides the final setup of this virtual universe, as well as the navigation and interaction system through the interlinked conceptual objects.

During the seminar the following functionalities were implemented:

Layer 1- almost complete with a few behaviours and materials included – more behaviours and materials can be added easily
Layer 2 – a simple hierarchical tagging model has been chosen – this layer can be extended to support more sophisticated models, based on further research which could not be accomplished during the seminar
Layer 3 – This layer is almost completed, except for the storage of complex structures which could not be completed due to lack of time.
Layer 4 – This layer is complete.

As already mentioned, the system architecture is such that it can be easily extended to include more sophisticated functionalities.

The most important achievement of this meeting is that we have managed to subdue our different ideas and viewpoints and to converge to a product that will form the basis for further collaboration.

This ambitious work has already raised many important research issues and ideas which we will investigate.

Furthermore, the Delphus 3.0 platform will be the basis for the next seminar.

TSIANAKA ANGELIKI FOTOS DELPHUS 2009

Delphus Project’s DIARY

09.07.2009 Arrive in Delphi

10. 07.2009
Introduction, Project Presentation, Groups’ Organization,
21:00 Presentation: W.Y.F.I. project
Image and Text documentation for blog, Web and Publication content.

11. 07.2009
10:00-18:00 workshops: Design volumes/ Platform Architecture Design/ Object Navigation and Interaction System/ Audiovisual Activities
21:00 Presentation: Manthos Santorineos
Image and Text documentation for blog, Web and Publication content.

12. 07.2009
10:00-18:00 workshops: Concept Analysis/ Platform Architecture Design/ Object Navigation and Interaction System/ Audiovisual Activities
21:00 Presentation: Voula Zoi
Image and Text documentation for blog, Web and Publication content.

13. 07.2009
10:00-18:00 workshops: Concept Analysis / 3D seminar / Platform Architecture Design/ Object Navigation and Interaction System/ Audiovisual Activities
21 :00 Presentation: Amparo Carnonell
Film projection
Image and Text documentation for blog, Web and Publication content.

14. 07.2009
10:00-18:00 workshops: Concept Analysis/ Scripting Interface of the Platform with a database/ Object Navigation and Interaction System/ Audiovisual Activities
21 :00 Presentation: Cédric Plessiet programming seminar
Image and Text documentation for blog, Web and Publication content.

15. 07.2009 Museum visit
15:00- 18:00 workshops: Video & 3D Artwork development, Scripting Interface of the Platform with a database/ Audiovisual Activities
21 :00 Presentation: Christophe Atabekian audiovisual seminar
Image and Text documentation for blog, Web and Publication content.

16. 07.2009
10:00-18:00 workshops: Video & 3D Artwork development, Scripting Interface of the Platform with a database/ Object Navigation and Interaction System/ Audiovisual Activities
21 :00 Presentation: Anne-Laure George-Molland 3D seminar
Image and Text documentation for blog, Web and Publication content.

17. 07.2009
10:00-18:00 workshops: Video & 3D Artwork development, Scripting Interface of the Platform with a database/ Object Navigation and Interaction System/ Audiovisual Activities
21 :00 Presentation: Marie-Hélène Tramus/ students’ work from ATI-Paris8.
Image and Text documentation for blog, Web and Publication content.

18. 07.2009
10:00-18:00 Trip to Gallaksidi
21:00 Presentation: Dimitra Gounari
Image and Text documentation for blog, Web and Publication content.

19. 07.2009
10:00-18:00 workshops: Video & 3D Artwork development/ Object Navigation and Interaction System/ Audiovisual Activities/ Web Page Development
21 :00 Presentation: Janis Jefferies, Goldsmiths College-University of London,
Maria Chatzichristodoulou, University of Hull
Image and Text documentation for blog, Web and Publication content.

20. 07.2009
10:00-18:00 workshops: Video & 3D Artwork development/ Object Navigation and Interaction System/ Audiovisual Activities/ Web Page Development
21 :00 Presentation: Final Project
Image and Text documentation for blog, Web and Publication content.

21.07.2009
Departure from Delphi

PLATFORM STATUS

The Delphus_3 space is a 3D virtual space of interconnected conceptual objects. The main idea of this platform is to create virtual space for experimentation with concepts and ideas.

It is based on the following multilayer architecture:

Layer 1: Palette of primitive elements (e.g.3D objects, media objects, behaviours)
Layer 2: Conceptual object tagging and database storage
Layer 3: Object interconnection, interaction and navigation system
Layer 4: Permanent storage of complex structures of interconnected objects
Layer 5: Conceptual searching

During the seminar only Layers 1, partly Layer 2, and Layer 3 have been implemented. Layer 2, 4 and 5 require further research and couldn’t be completed during the seminar. Though, the system architecture is such that it can be easily extended.

For the moment, different modules have been developed and they are being merged to give the complete architecture.

These modules have the following functionality:

•Insertion form for conceptually tagging objects
•Application of behaviours to an object
•Storage of conceptual and behavioural information of objects to the database
•Creation of dynamic objects, based on data from the database
•Navigation through the created objects based on their visibility


Voula Zoi