“Digital Bothy” by Ramya lyer
The digital bothy in its Scottish landscape.
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- Digital Bothy
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Digital Bothy is an immersive 3D experience combining high-definition digital reconstruction with a narrative on the non-reproducibility of place. It is the product of a solo, 15 mile hike to photogrammetrically capture the Allt Scheicheachan bothy, a little stone building tucked away in the remote Scottish Cairngorms open to any traveler in need of shelter. The resulting 3D scan became the centerpiece for a hyperreal, first-person Highland excursion built with Unreal Engine. The final work honors Allt Scheicheachan’s inaccessibility, subverting expectations of a pixel-perfect digital replica. It takes a traveler 3 hours to reach the bothy’s door in real life. In-game, the journey is condensed into 20 seconds. Given the virtual hiker’s minimal effort and the absurdity of shelter in the digital environment, Digital Bothy resists exposing the bothy’s true structure upon their arrival, wobbling and tessellating as they grow closer, until it is an unrecognizable mosaic of fractured data. A field recording of Cairngorm wind blows with growing intensity as the viewer enters the cloud of swirling bothy shards, magnifying the distortion. This project was completed over the course of a year, and evolved into a personal meditation on the tension between digital simulation and the natural world.
