“Plasm: A Country Walk” by Rob Myers, Rebecca Fuson, Peter Broadwell


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Title:


    Plasm: A Country Walk

Artist(s) and People Involved:


Symposium:


Artist Statement:


    This interactive art installation piece consists of a large screen with a dog leash out in front of it. When you first come upon it the screen is showing a sleeping dog (or a bouncy yelping one depending on how long since the last “walk”.) Picking up the leash wakes the dog up and off you go.

    At first you are walking down a photo-realistic country lane, bouncy puppy dog in front of you and all. Sound effects give a sense of presence to the world, chirping birds, crickets, footsteps as you cross bridges etc. The leash is both your input device and the computer’s feedback device, it pulls you when the dog sees something off the road that it wants to investigate.  Depending on how compliant you are to the dogs wishes you will encourage more or less “mutations” of the environment. Over time image processing effects and fractionally generated scenery will eat away at the photo-realism and leave you walking through a stranger and stranger world. There is no end to how long you can walk as more scenery is constantly generated. Of course the dog gets tired after a while… Of particular interest is the novel force feedback that the leash provides as well as the realism of the imagery, at least until you have walked a long way and “evolved” a very strange world. The piece consists of a 3D Interactive Multiplayer, a custom force reflective electronic dog leash, custom software and large screen rear projection television.

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