And later, with And what about me ? (online), we don't dig anymore. And that's not so bad!
THE BIG QUESTIONS
- Is God flat ?
- Is the devil curved ?
- And what about me ?
In November 1994, Artifice 3 exhibition presented twelve interactive art installations in Saint-Denis. Maurice Benayoun proposed his first virtual reality installation. created and produced by Z.A Production : Is God flat ?
That was the first step of the Big Questions series of interactive artworks. IMAGINA ’95, on the Canal+ TV channel booth, Monte Carlo, is presented the second Question : Is the Devil curved?
Both Virtual Reality (V.R.) installations are based on the same principle :
In Is God flat ? we are in a bricked up room and we can dig corridors in real time through a three-dimensional material.
For who cares of technical details, here we have a triple performance : the architectural database is rebuilt frame by frame. The visitor can choose any direction on horizontal plane he wants. The corridors built remain in memory and can cross-check themselves until they form a very complex architectural space. Thus, we can carry out what can be called Boolean operations (intersection of volumes, subtraction, addition, difference) in real time. In addition to the concept, the material through which we dig is a 3-D texture, remaining coherent whatever the section axis is. If with Is God flat ? we dig through bricks, in Is the Devil curved ? we dig into a nice blue sky sprinkled with clouds. And later, with And what about me ? (online), we don’t dig anymore. And that’s not so bad ! The Tunnel under the Atlantic is probably the “biggest” (the only way to qualify it) thing dug in VR, but in a very different way.
MB, press release, 1995