THE SPACE BETWEEN TWO PERCEPTIONS
Created in collaboration with Jose Pacio.
Recently on view at the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, WA from May 15th through June 23, 2019. The experience merges the virtual world and the real world to investigate the perceptions of tactility and space in Virtual Reality. How do the perceptions of the real world and the virtual world coexist with one another?

A lightbulb is the central interface existing in both reality and virtual reality. As the prominent object of both perceptions, real and virtual, the lightbulb becomes a central marker to test the affordances of this environment. What are the bounds of the future visual interface?

We were able to make and exhibit two versions of this project which gave us the opportunity to observe as people explored the experiences. By talking to people and discussing their reactions we had an opportunity to gain insights about the interaction models within and beyond these virtual environments. This let us build our understanding of what was important for people about what they had experienced. We estimate that approximately 1000 people interacted with these exhibits over the time they were on display.

The first exhibit was at the University of Washington’s Jacob Lawrence Gallery for two weeks. This first iteration included elements appearing in both realities: the lightbulb, a pedestal, and specifically dim lighting which created a similar visual atmosphere in both the real gallery and the virtual environment.

Additionally, in the virtual space a sparse and flat night landscape comprised the virtual environment through the headset. The use of hand tracking brought representational hands into the virtual environment which moved in accordance with participants’ real hands. Geometric echoes of the pedestal were far off in the landscape with multiple light sources above and a mysterious geometric green spiky object rotated in the distance which was a remnant from early experimentation to visually represent the notion of tactility.

This first exhibition was an opportunity to observe initial responses, to work out problems, and see how the piece could best be pushed further for the second exhibit a few months later.

The second exhibit was on view for one month at the Henry Art Gallery. This version makes greater use of the physical architecture of the gallery itself by the inclusion of proportional graphic representations of walls and doorways that align with the actual walls and doors, bringing the physical to the virtual beyond just the lightbulb and the pedestal as in the previous iteration. Extending beyond the bounds of the real world, we physically built extra door frames in the gallery to act as markers in the real world for onlookers as well as to serve as windows to other environments within the virtual world.

The exhibitions made observable the interactions of one's body with virtual reality itself, the reaction to the lightbulb, the negotiation of both worlds real and virtual. The virtual environment included additional elements such as full scale video appearing through passageways and multiple landscapes viewable through the doorways which were not visible to onlookers in the actual gallery. A motion tracker was placed on the lightbulb so that in the virtual environment it would respond to touch by matching the movements of the real world lightbulb as people were inclined to interact with the bulb which hung from a long light cord above a pedestal. This type of feedback from the ability to touch the virtual world and have the perception of responsive movement seemed to give people a profound grounding within the environment through both the tactile sensation and corollary motion of the bulb. People eluded to the surprise of having something like an out of body experience but still being within their control. The architecture of both worlds aligned as well which appeared to give people an immediate trust in their ability to move around the space to explore.


Through the presence of hand tracking technology which brought the movement of the hands into the virtual environment, people seemed particularly astounded by the sensation of seeing hands in VR which matched their real hand movements down to the level of finger movements. The lighting played an important role in both environments as shadows were cast by the hands and their movement. This was something that people spent time exploring like one would when discovering shadow puppets for the first time.

Thank you to everyone who participated for the great opportunity to meet, talk, and explore this piece with you.

VR seems to have the potential to provide access to a sense of childlike exploration and wonder. These exhibitions are the physical artifact from my graduate thesis project in the Master of Design program at the University of Washington in Seattle.
This experience was created in collaboration with Jose Pacio who was responsible for the project’s computer science needs and technical creativity. Our collaboration was essential for bringing ideas beyond our individual capabilities and conceptual limitations. Creating experiences for virtual reality at this point in time is challenging and this work benefitted from our combined thoughts and efforts. Special thanks to our mentors at the University of Washington, Professors Axel Roesler, Audrey Desjardins, and Barbara Mones.
A link to the written thesis is here:
Mixed Reality & Tactility.pdf
TECHNICAL INFORMATION
Virtual Reality hardware: HTC Vive
VR Platform: SteamVR
Sensor Object Tracking: Vive Tracker
Hand Tracking: Leap Motion
Computer: Alienware Laptop
Engine: Unity 2018.2