Zach Duer

(In Progress)

In Between Spaces is an an experimental XR artwork integrating an animated, interactive 3D model with a physical facsimile.

What lies in the infinite space in between? In between the frames of a film? In between the pixels of an image? In between the vertices of a 3D model? The imaging technologies and media we employ each have their own unique, idiomatic footprint in their approach to capturing and quantizing the world. They can also be turned inwards on themselves, and tasked to produce images that come in between. Through this, we find the imagination of the technology itself.

As an interdisciplinary collaboration, we are investigating the audience experience of XR art. How does the physical presence of the sculpture impact the understanding and experience of the virtual counterpart? How does the ability of audience to animate the virtual sculpture based on their movement affect their perception of the physical object?

This piece has many layers of process. A dancer's movement was captured by a camera and translated to a still-image print. Mariam Eqbal re-choreographed and translated the print through the medium of a flat-bed scanner into an animation. I extracted frames of the animation and lent them depth by extruding them into a 3D model. I created a program to interpolate and blend between multiple 3D models, formed from different frames. The interpolation can be dictated by audience interaction with the artwork. James Kiscaden formed a physical sculpture out of clay, mirroring one of the 3D models derived from one of the animation frames derived from the scanning of the image of the dancer.