Re: Works of Art

Brandon Van every (vanevery@rbdc.rbdc.com)
Thu, 27 Apr 95 16:15 EDT

I have to say, I think that adapting existing works of art to this new
medium is going to be a near-total aesthetic failure. Different media
really do call for different approaches, and although VR may *look*
sorta like painting, it's really *very* different. Doing a subtle
homage is one thing; doing a true adaptation of style is likely to
fall flat.

Then it is important to examine the differences, and not to gainsay their
worthiness before even making the attempt.

Given the ideas I've heard so far, I find the Dali/Escher adaptations
wildly unexciting. (And I am a *big* fan of both.) The Star Wars
notion has *some* potential, although I suspect that it's going to
ride somewhere on the line between "art" and "entertainment" (which
may or may not be the same thing, depending on your definitions).
The ideas that *really* turn me on are, for instance, the ones with
the abstract forms that respond to the user. (The biofeedback rooms
are an extraordinarily cool idea, the first really *innovative* idea
I've heard yet, and one of the first that sounds like something I'd
be interested in playing with for more than a minute.)

One person's artistic garbage is another person's artistic treasure.
I find that AI-generated biofeedback works can be quite bland, because
the program often runs out of tricks that are symbolically meaningful
to humans. Yet I don't take this as a prescription for abandoning
AI-biofeedback approaches. I merely recognize that current approaches
are limited, and seek to pioneer new horizons.

Can you contribute some specific weaknesses of Dali or Escher for VR
purposes? It would provide more grounds for discussion.

Cheers,
Brandon