The New Cinema – Creating Your Own Environments

Over at The Creators Project, and in association with Eyebeam and Framestore, New Cinema is conceptualizing new ways of merging visual arts and moving images with the more experiential concepts long associated with video games. In a recent post on The Creators Project blog, a team member at the recent hackathon shares the experience of generating an environment from the organic input of a user, who is connected to a headset with a microphone. The user’s own breathing, an involuntary but constant action, is recognized by the microphone, and pushes an island away from the main character as they attempt to cross the bridge toward it.

The result is a meditation on the philosophy of existence and space. Not exactly standard themes for a video game, but that is exactly the point of what the group is trying to accomplish. They want to explore new ways in which existing media and technology can be used to create personal experiences that go beyond the traditional narrative or informational drives we typically use them for. Instead of accomplishing a task (the user will never reach the island at the end because the breathing will keep it away and the water beneath is infinite), we are asked to think logically about the situation, and what it might mean for each one of us personally.

The post goes further in depth on all things technological and philosophical, and is well worth a read. See a short documentary on the project below.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2013 at 8:00 am. It is filed under Random. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.