Marcos Novak

The Allobrain: An interactive, stereographic, 3D audio, immersive virtual world

This paper describes the creation of the Allobrain project, an interactive, stereographic, 3D audio, immersive virtual world constructed from fMRI brain data and installed in the Allosphere, one of the largest virtual reality spaces in existence. This paper portrays the role the Allobrain project played as an artwork driving the technological infrastructure of the Allosphere. The construction of the Cosm toolkit software for prototyping the Allobrain and other interactive, stereographic, 3D audio, immersive virtual worlds in the Allosphere is described in detail. Aesthetic considerations of the Allobrain project are discussed in relation to world-making as a means to understand and explore large data sets.

Artist Round Tables

Taking the Planetary Collegium as their starting point, members of the round table address research issues as they relate to the development of practice and theory in the context of collaborative criticism and inquiry across a wide field of knowledge and experience. The Collegium network is worldwide, in terms of its meeting and conference locations, the cultural identity of its members, and its ambition to develop nodes based on and complementary to its unique procedures and method-ologies. The Collegium emerges from 10 years of experience with CAiiA-STAR in gathering doctoral and post-doctoral researchers of high calibre whose work transcends orthodox subject boundaries, and whose practices are at the leading edge of their fields. We are living in a time of crisis for universities, museums and corporations, a time in which old cultural and academic structures need to be replaced by research organisms fitted to our telematic, post-biological society. The Collegium combines the physical, face-to-face transdisciplinary association of individuals with the nomadic, trans-cultural requirements of a networking community. The panelists, all members of the Collegium at various stages in its development, present their personal visions of the direction future research might take and the structures needed to support it.

Dancing with the Virtual Dervish (work-in-progress raw material): On-line; March 1994

Master copy; Online; On-line 4,3. Choreography and concept: Yacov Sharir, Diane Gromala. Dance Company: Sharir Dance Company. Concept (architect): Marcos Novak.

Virtual Bodies: Travels Within; 1994

Choreography: Yacov Sharir. Dance Company: Sharir Dance Company. Architecture: Marcos Novak. Design: Diane Gromala. Videography: Jay Ashcraft

Dancing with the Virtual Dervish (work-in-progress raw material): Entering the Chamber, Body, Architecture; March 1994

Choreography and concept: Yacov Sharir, Diane Gromala. Dance Company: Sharir Dance Company. Concept (architect): Marcos Novak . Performer: Yacov Sharir

Dancing with the Virtual Dervish (work-in-progress raw material): The Body in Cyberspace, Virtual Dervish Video v1.2a; 1994

Choreography and concept: Yacov Sharir, Diane Gromala. Dance Company: Sharir Dance Company. Concept (architect): Marcos Novak . Music: Marcos Novak. Visuals: Diane Gromala, Yacov Sharir.