SPIN SPACES MEETINGS
Time‘s Up 2001

1. ABSTRACT

This is an overview of some key areas that were dicussed during a series of meetings that primarily took place in october 2001. Various areas discussed are being persued in more detail with the formulation of experiments and prototyped environments. As a great deal of these discussions just formed loose threads or fragments of ideas, much of the overall content that has been published here takes the form of brief statements/ concepts.

2. INTRODUCTION “SPIN SPACES”

“SPIN Spaces” is a research series of Time’s Up. It engages in the investigation of borders of three dimensional euclidean spaces in Virtual Reality (VR) in general and of the borders of those spaces inTime’s Up’s Spherical Projection Interface (SPIN) in particular. This is an investigation that aims to break the common notion of space in VR.
For SPIN Spaces Time’s Up cooperates with other artists, pseudo scientists and engineers:

Alex Davies,Maex Decker and Dietmar Offenhuber work together with Tina Auer, Alexander Barth, Tim Boykett and
Gerd Trautner at this project.
SPIN Spaces Meetings by October 2001
SPIN Spaces Meeting #1 September 20 th , 2001
SPIN Spaces Meeting #2 October 4 th , 2001
SPIN Spaces Meeting #3 October 24 th , 2001•4

3. IDEAS

Visualization of Wegzeit
- Walking in a virtual world changes its distances (topology?) according to the user’s pace.
- Spring/rubberband model: representation of wegzeit as distance between points.
- “isochrone morphing”.
- Question: What are the possibilities of interaction in such an environment if it is networked (e.g. two
SPINs)?
- Maze based?
- Distortion of space persists: Later users find the environment changed by their predecessors.
- Speed related representations: level of detail, textures, content - e.g. labyrinth that loses doors with speed.
-Velocity of Light Simulation, based on the relativity theory of A. Einstein.
- The “Slow Speed of Light World”.
- Virtual environment in which the user’s speed is accelerated to (near) light velocity.
- Simulation of visual effects caused by the limited velocity of light.
Oral Description of Space
- Voice recognition systems.
- Voice to space converter. (e.g. dictionary based)
- Possible effect vector from outside into the SPIN.
- Questionnaire based.
- Limited vocab? – Think of old text adventures.
- Outside sounds effecting internal environment
- Posting oral sound sprites in space (sound as localizer in space).
TARDIS Spaces – Mapping of input data
- “Alice in Wonderland” worlds.
- Set up illusions than break them: In the beginning there is consistancy of space then it breaks slowly.
- House larger from inside than from outside.
- Flying by lung extension.
- Magnetic ball (going up the wall).
- Is the IRS already a TARDIS space?
Spaces without 3 dimensions
- No use of 3D APIs.
- Use of light equipment such as spots, scanners and strobes.
- Extended use of sound.
- Shadow play.
- Is this VR?
- As you get closer to a sound, strobe gets faster/intensity.
- Walk through colour gradients (like through a photoshop colour chooser). Perhaps in conjunction
with strobe effects.
- Combination of light and projections.
Hyperbolic Spaces
- Is the perception of such noneuclidean space “easier” when we can walk in it?
Camera Bot
- SPIN is the interface to a robot equipped with a radio controlled panoramic video camera.
Multi Spaces
- Being in various spaces at the same time (SPIN)
- Mulitiple cameras.
- Various spaces on various parts of the ball surface.
- Acting in several spaces simultaniously not integrated/merged together.
“Selbst bauen”
Ability to “create” in a virtual environment.
Story telling
- The “machine” tells a story each day.
- Log files of discussions.
- Chatter bots.
- Speech (mis)recognition.
Sound Spaces
- Manipulation of audio effects with SPIN (time stretching, scratching, controlling pitch, playing
samples reverse, ...).
- Physical objects controlled via SPIN: i.e. scratching with turntables, the motor of the turntables
controlled by the user in SPIN.
- Visualise waveform of audio (height of sound object dependent of the sample’s amplitude)
- Sound fed back to individual (processed, delayed).
- Calling your name and using the sample for a distant call for navigation (name echoes at exit).
- Censoring, filtering dialogue via voice recognition (e.g. user must call it’s own name in order to get it
fed back into a maze as a hint which way to take)
- Vocal/gate sampler navigation through labyrinths: dropping sound sprites (“vox sprites”) at crossings
which e.g. contain information which way the user has taken. If the labyrinth is not purged after each
user, the vox sprites would remain in space and build phantom characters (the “essence” of all
predecessors).
- Connecting some of the ideas here with those in “Spaces without 3 dimensions” could be interesting.•7
4. LOOSE THREADS
Urban Spaces
Hierarchical/Non Hierarchical Organization of Space
- American grid networks (non hierarchical) as opposed to “european” treelike structure.
Leibnitz vs Newton
- Newton says space is absolute, Leibnitz says space is based upon the obejcts in it.
- How might this be visualiseable?
- Mirror images show that although relations are the same, the orientation (left shoe, right shoe or left
and right screws) is different, thus space is not just relative.
Qualities of SPIN
- SPIN is an interface where velocity really is apparent.
- Point of View (POV) correlation to walking movement possibly vital – mapping movements to other
actions might lower the immersiveness.
The perversion of space according to velocity
- Maex and Didis project.
Dramaturgy in VR
- Video-like cuts.
- As opposed to continuous worlds with no cuts at all.
- Cuts in the SPIN worlds dramaturgy as possibly problematic.
- Current solution in BodySpin Environments based upon time restraints last year.
Game Worlds
- Distortions of space.
- Speed of movement raised
- Steps bigger.
- Interface/perception engineering (adapting virtual worlds according to the interface in use with it).
- What appears natural but actually isn’t when viewed from the outside (manipulating proportions to
make them look naturally).
Sound spatialisation
- The “Huron” sound spatialisation system of “Lake”.
Are steps traceable via acceleration?
- Problem: Maximum speed on trackball is already reached (max delta, wheel size, max baudrate).
- Problem: Momentum of ball.
- Problems: Noisiness of data and the ball bouncing at uneven spots on the big sphere.
- Using industrial scale architecture.
Memory
Idea unclear...
- Should match memory/abstract spaces.
- Enhance with memories of others.
Virtual Reality
- Immersion
- Mixed Reality
- The Machine.
- Gesamtheit of virtual environment/interface to that environment.
“Existence” of Cronenburg
- human avatars and actors•9
Applications
- Using the ideas of “SPIN Spaces meetings” in applications that actually do something other than just
be nice visual effects.
- Competition/collaboration: what are the motives of users to get engaged with the
environment/installation...
Synaesthetic effects
-mapping image > sound.
- Reading a book where it rains, but in reality sun shines, we hear the rain.
Content/Formality/Design discussion
- Ouch!
- Is the SPIN Spaces discussion rather about formal/design aspects of Virtual Reality?
- Can formal and contental/functional aspects of one work be seperated? Where are the borders
between form and content/function?
- Example Breath Surf:
Function: The more breath in your lungs, the higher the waves. The heigher the waves, the easier to
surf. The aim is to travel as fast as possible over a difined distance.
Form: you cannot see, touch, hear, feel or smell the function, the idea. The form is the mediator. It is
the waves on watersurface depicted as a black/blue checkerboard, it is the red boxes deployed to
visualise speed. It is the Beach Boys sample played whilst surfing. It is the red wire frame beach.
Note: waves appear here at both ands of the form/function distinction, the red boxes don’t...
- From which side do we attempt to break the borders of euclidean space? From the formal side? From
the content/function side? Are we trying to find merely new symbols in the set of VR syntax or do we
also have the proper application for them
- These questions are probably counterproductive.

5. GLOSSARY
API Application Programming Interface. Defined interface provided to access the functions
of an application without having to know its interial functionality.

BodySpin Environment Virtual Environment, term for one of the 4 worlds or “levels” of the application for
the SPIN at the BodySpin Show. For further information on BodySpin Environments
visit http://www.timesup.org/spin.

BodySpin,BodySpin Show. A Time’s Up interactive installation having SPIN as it’s central interface. For further
information on the BodySpin Show visit http://www.timesup.org/spin.

IRS Inverted Reality System. One of the BodySpin Environments, part of the BodySpin
Show. For further information on the IRS visit http://www.timesup.org/spin.

POV Point of view. Point in environment which is the virtual eyepoint of the user.

SPIN Spherical Projection Interface. SPIN is a special Human-VR Interface desigened by
Time’s Up. For further information on SPIN visit http://www.timesup.org/spin.
synaesthesia The production of a mental sense impressino relating to one sense by the stimulation
of another sense. (adjective: synaesthetic)

Virtual Environment,VE Yet to define: one VE can consist of several rooms, in our diction BodySpin consists
of 4 environments (Brain Maze...), it is the whole of present entities in a VR system
which the user can perceive or manipulate, what is the difference to Virtual Reality?
Virtual Reality,VR. Yet to define – who knows?

vox sprite, Sprite in environment which contains voice sample.

wegzeit, The time it takes to cover a distance.

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