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Overview
INSTRUMENT | One Antarctic Night (IOAN) is an interactive generative virtual environment created from data captured by the AST3 robotic telescopes on Dome A in Antarctica (Ma et al., 2020), in combination with open astronomical data from the GAIA DR2 release (https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia) (Gaia Collaboration, 2016; Gaia Collaboration et al., 2018), and the SIMBAD Astronomical Database (http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/) (Wenger et al., 2000).
Subsections:
INSTRUMENT: One Antarctic Night, is a performative, multi-participant, and reconfigurable virtual reality artwork. Participants interact with a large scale immersive signal-object field. The field is created from data collected by the AST3 (Antarctic Survey Telescope) robotic telescopes on Dome A, Antarctica. It contains 817,373 astronomical objects from within the Large Magellanic Cloud and is constructed in the Unity game-engine. Real-time database queries, selections, and filtering operations enable participants to collaboratively interact with the signal objects in the field to create dataremixes from astronomical data..
Video ( 3:05 duration) INSTRUMENT | One Antarctic Night - installed at the xREZ Art + Sience Lab - video with concept description, aesthetic experience, and multi-player embodied interaction
Video ( 4:26 duration) Multi-participant interaction in the virtual environment. Shows various aesthetic gestures that are mapped to analytical operations. 1:16 - players exchange signal objects; collaborative dataremix-ing throughout; each player is visible in the virtual enviornment as a visor and controllers. There are three player colors, red, green and blue. The physical HMDs are color coded with red, green and blue covers. This supports the participants experience of the virtual and physical world being continuous.
Video ( 35 seconds ) Looking around the virtual environment. This video is silent until 5 seconds befoe the end. The text that is visible in the virtual environment, starting at 00:04 seconds, is data released into the world by participants through interaction with signal objects in the field. TThrough continuous interaction, the data completely overwrites the virtual environment.
Video ( 1:48 duration) Multi-participant interaction within the virtual environment.
Video ( 0:16 duration) Player (red HMD and controllers) performs a filter operation as a double-strike, percussion-like gesture on the surface of the signal object field. Prior to the filter operation (at 00:01)the player views one of four filter dimensions (blue color panel that briefly shows on their controllers) and then performs the filter. Note that the signal objects that match the filter criteria, acquire the filter color as they separate from the field. Each filter operation has a distinctive sonic overtone. The filter changes sound based on position of the player in the object field and the objects affected by the filter.
Video ( 00:19 duration) Player (gree HMD and controllers) performs a filter operation as a double-strike, percussion-like gesture on the surface of the signal object field. Prior to the filter operation the player views one of four filter dimensions (yellow color panel that briefly shows on their controllers) and then performs the filter. Note that the signal objects that match the filter criteria, acquire the filter color as they separate from the field. Each filter operation has a distinctive sonic overtone. The filter changes sound based on position of the player in the object field and the objects affected by the filter.
ANU School of Art & Design Gallery, Australia National University, Canberra, October 2021 (Opening 13 October 2021, pending COVID-19 restrictions, this is rescheduled from exhibition in July 2020
Beaker Street 2020 Festival, Hobart Tasmania, Australia, 2020 (Cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic)
Art Gallery, ACM SIGGRAPH 2018, Vancouver, Canada, 2018
Australia National University, Visual Arts Endowment Fund, $25,000 AUD (Forthcoming, exhibition support)
BenQ America Corporation, in-kind technology valued at $4800 USD
ACM SIGGRAPH 2018 Art Gallery Funding, $10,315 USD
US National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) #15-5400-7043 (PI), $25,000 USD
INSTRUMENT | One Antarctic Night is conceptualized and created by Ruth West at University of North Texas, whilst acting as director of xREZ Art + Science Lab, and was made in collaboration with scientists, composers, technologists and students as part of an art + science collaboration.
Members of the collaboration have changed as the project has undergone multiple phases of development and exhibition. In addition to West the collaboration has included (alphabetical order): Ian Afflerbach (*), Lars Berg, Ermir Bejo(*), Andrew Blanton, Alejandro Borsani, Hannah Helgesen(*), Luke Hillard(*), Amelia Jaycen(*), Violet Johnson(*), Scot Gresham-Lancaster, Roger Malina, Eitan Mendelowitz, Brian Merlo(*), Christopher Poovey(*), Seth Shafer(*), Mike Tarlton(*), Zach Thomas(*), Lifan Wang, I Chen Yeh(*). The project has undergone multiple phases of development, with concomitant changes in members of the team. The collaboration shifted significantly from an initial exploratory phase that included Ermir Bejo(*), Andrew Blanton, Alejandro Borsani, Amelia Jaycen(*), Scot Gresham-Lancaster, Brian Merlo(*), Seth Shafer(*), and Mike Tarlton(*). These members departed the collaboration prior to the first phase of production, in which the collaboration included Lars Berg, Violet Johnson(*), Roger Malina, Eitan Mendelowitz, Zach Thomas(*), Lifan Wang, and I Chen Yeh(*). The collaboration has shifted further and the current team includes: Ian Afflerbach (*), Hannah Helgesen(*), Luke Hillard(*), Roger Malina, Eitan Mendelowitz, Christopher Poovey(*), Zach Thomas(*), Lifan Wang. Scientific consultants: Stella Kafka, Roger Malina, Lifan Wang, Jason Young. Note: (*) denotes students at the time of their participation. Not all collaborators participated in all phases of the project.
West's role as project director involves originating the idea for the project, conceptualization and creative direction, research, project development, management, fundraising, and production (including visuals, interface/interaction design, data analysis, multiscale visual and auditory data mapping design). Mendelowitz's role includes idea and project development and programming. Thomas's and Poovey's role include composition and sound design, spatialization and audio engine and web remix engine programming. Jaycen's role included website content development. Yeh's role included data analysis and system integration. Berg and Johnson's roles included graphical development and programming, GPU graphics optimization, and system integration. Afflerbach, Helgesen and Hillard's roles include system optimization, integration, networking, cross-platform system development, installer development, web remix engine development and programming. Lifan Wang, astrophysicist and professor, Texas A&M, PI for the robotic astronomical observatory on Dome A, Antarctica, provided the AST3 dataset. Scientific consultation was provided by: Lifan Wang, Roger Malina, professor, and astrophysicist, and professor, University of Texas at Dallas, Lingzhi Wang, Beijing Astronomical Observatory, Stella Kafka, astronomer and director of the American Association of Variable Star Observers, and Jason Young, astronomer, Mount Holyoke College provided scientific consultation.
- Ma, B. et al. (2020). Automation of the AST3 optical sky survey from Dome A, Antarctica. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 496 (3), 2768–2775. Available from https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa1730.
- Gaia Collaboration. (2016). The Gaia mission. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 595, A1. Available from https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201629272.
- Gaia Collaboration et al. (2018). Gaia Data Release 2. Summary of the contents and survey properties. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 616, A1. Available from https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201833051
- Wenger, M. et al. (2000). The SIMBAD astronomical database. The CDS reference database for astronomical objects. Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series, 143, 9–22. Available from https://doi.org/10.1051/aas:2000332.
