Ghost Hardware: DeepBlue
An immersive virtual tour: when memories mix virtual with real
UNIT 5: GHOST HARDWAREAA Visiting School, MelbourneGroup work | Winter Intensive, 2019Collaborated with Jingyi Liu and Shengzhi HuangCoordinator: Paul Loh, Mond QuTutor: Alvaro F. Pulpeiro, Sergej Maier
Project Brief
Ghost Hardware operates through two contradictory fields that many thought to be irreconcilable: the human realm and the virtual sphere of that which represents and abstracts itself. We will be building and orchestrating sound architectures extracted from real conversations with people We interviewed from Melbourne streets. In their memories we borrowed, copied, distorted and reconstructed a new narrative. Ultimately this will become an immersive spatial experience.
The final project is presented as a 360 degree panorama render experienced by the audience using VR goggles, with the soundtrack played by high quality headphones. This will walk the audience into a virtual realm that is developed into a narrative.
The narrative Deepblue investigated into the long-time debate on A.I. (Artificial Intelligence). In this case, the A.I. is implanted with human memories, emotions, and attempted to mimic human memories --- the cabin above. Our intention is to bring the audience into the faked reality, then revealing the truth that is was all just hallucination created by A.I.
UNIT 5: GHOST HARDWARE
AA Visiting School, Melbourne
Group work | Winter Intensive, 2019
Collaborated with Jingyi Liu and Shengzhi Huang
Coordinator: Paul Loh, Mond Qu
Tutor: Alvaro F. Pulpeiro, Sergej Maier
At the starting point of our project, we interviewed a couple of strangers who were mostly at the outskirt of mainstream in Melbourne City. For example, homeless and elderly --- those who we sometimes pass by as if they were invisible. It seems like to the city, they are like the ‘ghosts‘. However in this project, we want to extract their stories to find the emotion connection that help us build our character and narrative.
The recorded conversation will be later made into the “Ghost“ soundtrack to be combined with virtural field we created in 3dsMax.
Sound construction and distortion process in Premiere Pro
Reflection: Memories mix truth and lies
What is reality? What is virtual? In movie Long Day’s Journey Into the Night, the director conveyed his understanding through the protagonist: memories mix truth and lies.
Through two week’s intensive learning in Unit 5: Ghost Hardware. What distinguish the content from other units is not only the different pursuit in techniques, in creating a photo-realistic rendered image.
The past intensive two weeks broadens my rigid understanding of creative works that explores the
interdisciplinary fields of film, fiction and architecture. How do we capture memories? And how do we translate that into certain spatial quality that we can immerse people in directly with VR?
We watched Lost Highway(Lynch, 1997), Faust(Sokurov, 2011) and Holy Motors(2012) at class and explored vast references from movies, literature, poems after-class, including but not limited to Blade Runner, The Matrix, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Long Day’s Journey Into Night. What I found in common with all the films we watched, is that they discussed the highly abstracted, highly condensed life that blurred dimension between reality and imagination, sometimes even appears to be surreal.
In a summary, the project was not the end, it was merely a start that opens up the opportunities in
exploring new fields.