Lightpools or El Ball del Fanalet is a multi-user experience that uses Virtual Reality (VR) technology. It takes place in a circular arena approximately six meters in diameter, onto which a real-time computer generated image is projected from above. Each user is given one of four fanalets as they enter the arena, each containing a colored light with a battery pack and a position sensor. The sensor reports its position to a host computer, allowing each fanalet's position to be tracked in three-dimensional space. The two horizontal dimensions are used to position a colored circle of light projected onto the floor directly below each fanalet. The third dimension (height) is used to determine the size and brightness of the lightpool, so that its behavior mimics the effect of a light source emanating from the fanalet: as the fanalet is lowered, the pool becomes smaller and more intense; as it is raised, the pool becomes larger and dimmer. This gives users the impression that
the lightpool is projected directly from their fanalet, and gives them
an immediate, intuitive sense of how to interact with the work.
Each lightpool is a kind of window onto a virtual ground plane, which otherwise remains shrouded in darkness. Small colored polygons ("proto-objects") are spontaneously and randomly generated throughout the arena, glowing briefly like embers before disappearing. Each polygon is matched in color to one of the four fanalets. If a user manages to illuminate a polygon (during its brief life) with the appropriate lightpool at a sufficient intensity, the polygon grows and metamorphizes into an articulated object. In effect, the object feeds on light. The objects range variously from mechanical to biomorphic, abstract to ornamented. When the object has reached sufficient size, it remains stable, and is thereafter under the control of the user. At this point, if the user fails to decrease the intensity of the light (by raising their fanalet), the object grows until it bursts, scattering a new crop of colored polygons onto the floor. These polygons can then be nurtured
by other users, and the cycle continues
From these interactions emerges a complex, ever-changing dance of participants and virtual objects. New users can enter at any time (as long as there is an available fanalet), and users can stay as long as they like. Additional spectators can watch comfortably from behind the circular railing that encloses the arena. Several users can share a single fanalet, passing it back and forth as they wish. The atmosphere is one of a casual but concentrated chaos, as users observe and interact with their objects and each other.
Each event in the piece has an audio component as well: a delicate glassy tinkle as polygons appear, the whoosh of a pneumatic pump as objects grow, whipping air currents as objects are trained, and so on. A second independent stereo audio track, consisting of a variety of ballroom dance music (processed with huge amounts of reverberation) plays continuously and softly in the background, as though it is being heard from a great distance.
At any point, after two or more users have grown and trained stable objects, they can bring their fanalets together in a ritual gesture that indicates that they want their objects to join together in a choreographed object-dance. After a brief fanfare and a shower of light, the lightpools and objects leave the user behind and perform a group dance to a driving drumbeat, using the movements that they have been taught as they follow a choreographed path. The lightpools then leave the arena, and users can begin the cycle again.
El Ball del Fanalet is in part an investigation of the proposition that,
given the current state of available technology, it makes some sense to project an image onto the floor, instead of an upright wall. Of the three dimensions (height, width, depth), we are suggesting that height might be the most easily expendable. This strategy allows immersion or entrance into a two-dimensional image. Projecting the the image onto the floor also forces new strategies of spatial representation, since it effectively makes perspectival space incomprehensible. The project also suggests a number of possible relationships that can be experienced within a public space in an atmosphere that is reminiscent of a ballroom
or skating rink. We are interested in the area of what might be called casual or open-ended interactivity, an area which remains underexplored. Most media installations are still designed for a single user, (or for remotely networked users), and most still require users to remain immobile. We are trying to create the conditions under which an interactive, immersive image can be experienced as a casual, open, social space.
(Perry Hoberman)