New Concepts of Space

by AVPD

Human beings are constantly defining themselves in terms of space, mentally, socially and physically. Humans are spatial animals. Conventionally speaking, the relationship between humans and space is defined in terms of the human being as the subject in the context of space. In this sense space is static and defined by its constant geographical location over extended periods of time. In this conventional structure the machine is an object, operational within a given space. In some hybrid interfaces of space and machine, mobile spaces have been defined but these are still characterized by their rational, predictable and comprehensible movement patterns. Under normal circumstances, humans move on the basis of a given motivation through various spaces while operating various machines.

The genre of Science Fiction can be regarded as a mental laboratory within which experiments operating at odds with conventional moral and ethic codes can be undertaken. Many of these experiments break with conventional attitudes to the relationship between space, humans and machines. In selected works of science fiction we have detected a particular interest in the influence of new spaces on a subject's ability to navigate physically and cognitively.

In his novel "The Four Dimensional House", the American author Robert A. Heinlein describes a four dimensional structure, which is hit by an earthquake and re-structures itself into a new and unknown space. This becomes particularly fascinating when Heinlein includes human subjects in his space experiment and describes the way in which re-defined space influences and affects the subjects perceptively and cognitively.

In his modest novel "The Colony", Philip K. Dick exposes his characters to a similar form of pressure when a group of scientists in an underground space station are wiped out by an extra-terrestrial organism capable of replicating material objects. The organism copies everything in the space station; instead of one microscope there are suddenly two identical microscopes, two light switches and two door mats instead of one. The surface and shape of these objects are identical with the original object but are markedly different in one important aspect. If the scientists at the space station touch the extra-terrestrial copy they will be annihilated by it and die.

This specific lethal duplication is a direct attack on the subject's ability to navigate and distinguish between reality and virtual reality.

We also find a similar interest in redefining space in computer generated virtual worlds. Computer games are an example of the way a subject/person is exposed to an unfamiliar uncharted environment in which the subject must apply his/her visual and auditory senses in order to maintain his/her existence in this space. The spatial architecture of these games is often deliberately illogical in structure. E.g. in the games Marathon and Wolfenstein the subject is forced to rationally and intellectually re-orient perceptually and cognitively as conventional definitions of time and space are eradicated or altered. In the film trilogy The Matrix this is expressed in a scene where the main characters go in and out of doors in a corridor and at the same time move across the barriers of time and space.

In the world of computer games it is not absolutely necessary to project a realistic sense of space so there is freedom to create fictional fantasy spaces. In the three dimensional modeling of architects however, it is necessary to create as realistic an illusion of reality as possible. Computer games aim at creating as realistic a design as possible but often surfaces fall short of perfection due to the lack of computer graphic capacity so that the objects in these games often disintegrate into their parts, colored pixels, when viewed at close hand.

At the moment, our work takes as its point of departure reflections on a number of fictional spaces from the world of science fiction literature, films and computer architecture.

We aim to weave the virtual experience and construction principles together to form a series of new spaces, which on a perceptual plane connect haptic values to virtual forms thus making possible physical experiences in a virtual room.

This results in a synthesis of reality and virtual reality - a real virtual space.