ARTWORK

GIGASPACE is a virtual playground in which real world participants construct barriers and fences using cardboard cubes to interact with a virtual puppy. The puppy, a virtual character projected on the wall, was programmed as an autonomous, game-like character using pixel graphics.

Mapping from the physical to virtual world was done manually. Computer vision was not widely available or well developed in 1998. Instead a live video of the audience was shown on a hidden monitor in a back room to a controller (person). As participants moved the blocks, the controller in this room would move virtual blocks on the screen to keep the virtual world matched to the real world.

GIGASPACE was a team collaboration between Rama Hoetzlein, Jennifer Leonardi, James Raybury and Carol Terrizzi as a final project for an Experimental course in Digital Media Arts co-taught by John Zissovici, Marcia Lyons and Marilyn Rivchin, and was the first course of its kind at Cornell University.