JOURNEY
Concept: Rita
Addison, Margaret Watson
Design and Implementation: Margaret Watson
Sound Composition: Joe Reitzer
Creation Period: Mid 1995 to Early 1996
Journey was initially produced in mid
to late 1995 as the graphics for Synesthesia, a VR project directed by the artist Rita
Addison. The graphics for the first two scenes (the ocean and the tunnel) were
developed in conjunction with this project. They were created for the CAVE
using C programming, IrisGL and the CAVE library. In the end, however, the
graphics were not used for Synesthesia. So, the project was completed
with the development of a final scene and the addition of audio. Programming
for audio was accomplished with NCSA's VSS library.
The final version of Journey
was designed to be shown on video as an animation or in VR on an ImmersaDesk. Navigation on
the ImmersaDesk was accomplished with the wand and limited to forward and
backward movement.
Conceptually, the
animation conveys a journey, symbolic of birth, life and death. It begins in an
undulating sea with the emergence of a mysterious tunnel on the horizon [1].
The immersant passes through the tunnel [2], encounters particles and photons
[3, 4] and then eventually pops into another world at the end of the tunnel.
The world is a flowing, liquid place that contains a temple at the end of a
golden path [5]. Within the temple [6], a series of images of the past and present scenes
within Journey flash in succession. As the immersant approaches the flashing image [7],
the images stop on the present scene. The immersant then rises out of
the temple, into the flowing sky [8] and finally into nothingness.
Journey was exhibited publicly in a
group exhibition by the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at SIGGRAPH 96 in
© 1996 Margaret
Watson