• EAI DION 2021 - 2nd EAI International Conference on Data and Information

• Project Info on ResearchGate

In  response  to  the  growing  climate  crisis,  Luminiferous  Funeral  is  an  interdisciplinary Virtual Reality (VR) game-artwork with a physical-sensory perception installation. This work focuses on exploring  the  invisible  erosion  of  climate  change  and  environmental  breakdown  by  offering audiences  an  opportunity  to  dialogue  with  nature  and  seeks  to  focus  participants  on  the  inner communication with one's self about the essential nature of life and death.   

The  relationship  to  nature  is  harnessed  by  our digital  curation system in  which  we  seek collaborative  interactivity  from  others - encouraging  them  to  journey within  their  local  nature space  and  document  their  phenomenological  relationship  with  the  environment  through  sound clips, sketches, video, photographs, and other forms of digital media. These personal stories and expressions of nature form a collection of culturally infused ‘data’ which is uploaded to our virtual world-making   framework and   catalogued for   interpretation   by   our   custom-built   artificial intelligence (AI) curator. Through communication with corresponding environmental and climate scientists,  and  by  combining  this  user-centric  data  input  with  known  local  climate  and  weather models, the content of our VR world is produced, and edited, in real time – the playable game-art is a continuously  evolving source  of  entertainment- downloadable  game  patches  periodically transform the player’s VR world. Initial content will be pulled from existing artworks, images, and climate data and as such we can begin this phase of the project without the need to work around COVID-19 measures and external participation.  

A critical aspect of the curated experience rests on the participant’s capacity to interact with the VR world through the stimulation of a touch-based discourse. Spatial recognition is transmitted as one explores  the  world  through  haptic  feedback  situated  over  the  entire  body - with  specific attention  positioned  at  the  hands.  We  therefore  consider  the  integration  of  custom  haptic technology and kinaesthesic experiences that evolve alongside, and are influenced by, the content evolution  of  the  submitted  climate  data,  to  reflect  the  suggested  importance  of making  tangible these perceivably more abstract and displaced environmental issues.   With a Zen inspired ideology, our cloud-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems employ Natural Language Processing (NLP) on texts describing eastern and western philosophies of nature, power, fear  and  love,  space  and  environment  which  are  crafted  into  poetic  expressions,  and  physical interpretations   of,   this ongoing   accumulation   of   climate   content   and   used   to   create   the downloadable game content.  

(PDF) Luminiferous Funeral Journeying in Delusional Pavilions #UPDATE See us at ##EAI DIONE 2021- 2nd EAI International Conference on Data and Information in Online Environments regarding this work!. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344803686_Luminiferous_Funeral_Journeying_in_Delusional_Pavilions_UPDATE_See_us_at_EAI_DIONE_2021-_2nd_EAI_International_Conference_on_Data_and_Information_in_Online_Environments_regarding_this_work [accessed Apr 13 2021].