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by Tino Dobra
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Babelraum is an interactive installation, in which two persons stand opposite themselves and can steer together an avatar by joysticks through an infinitely large picture library. They are not only selecting pictures from different categories, but also create the space by their interaction at the same time.
The work reminds of a computer game, even if it is not strictly speaking a play - however it was developed from an idea of a gameplay and current computer game technology.
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Space
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Like in the narration “The Library of Babel” (1941) by Jorge Luis Borges, this library is made up of hexagonal rooms, which string together infinitely.
Behind every of the six walls from one room, there will be created a new room, when the avatar moves through.
So the library is created by interaction with the space, which means there is neither a start nor an end.
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Content
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Every room contains one image from a specific category like “painting of classicism” or “photography of a portrait”.
As a source I use pictures from free archives on the internet: first the Wikipedia gallery called Wikimedia-Commons for paintings, then the zoological drawings by Ernst Haeckel from his internet archive, ancient maps from the David Rumsey archive and photos from the community website Flickr.
All in all I use around 400 images, which are arranged in each case in three sub-categories, for example: painting > classicism > yellow.
The users can select images from specific categories by moving the avatar. This is based on a simple system: The more strongly the direction of the avatars movement changes, the more different will be the selected image. So if the users steer straight ahead, always images from the same group will be chosen (like blue photos of portraits). If the users move backwards, another main-category (maps for example) will be picket.
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Projections
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The content of this library is projected as textures into the virtual room.
Since the 3d space should only be recognizable if the user moves, an optical trick is used: the images are projected on the walls from the position of the avatar.
A little bit delayed a virtual projector follows the character. If the avatar stops, the room dissolves, because one cannot recognize the diagonal walls any longer, since virtual projector and viewer are on the exact same position and the textures aren’t distorted any more.
Such images that are projected into the room and therefore visible from only one standpoint are called anamorphisms. The artists Laurent La Gamba and Georges Rousse use this effect in there works, which are examples for me.
top: “Open fridge (outdoor)”, Laurent La Gamba, 2002; below: “Cologne”, Georges Rousse, 2002
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If the projection and the standpoint of the observer are identical, one cannot make out the depth of the room.
Like shown in the example on the left, the three-dimensional impression is gone, if the virtual projector moves to avatars location.
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Control
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Both users share one avatar, at which each could execute the same movements: forth- and backwards, sidewise rotation.
Users control the avatar with two digital joysticks, each on one column. To steer the agent through the digital space, one can interact with or against each other. The control impulses add or subtract themselves.
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Technical realisation
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As a basis I used the Doom-3 game engine, which I modified with the integrated script and shader language. This was a fast enough possibility to load and smoothly animate the compressed images of around 2.6 GB of data.
The infinitely large space is pretended to the users. In reality there are never more than three room segments, which are constantly arranged in new orders and bring the avatar always to the centre of the limited virtual world—like in the concept of a holodeck.
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Setup
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So that both users can see the same space, the picture is thrown with a projector on a back projection canvas, which is visible from both sides—in that way a virtual space is created between the viewers.
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Videos
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 babelraum300k (2.6 MB)
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Download (768 k) (7,4 MB)
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babelraum300kwmv (2.5 MB)
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