record

Thesis Info

LABS ID
00019
Thesis Title
Discovering Mixed Reality: inventing design criteria for an action based Mixed Reality
Author
Mette Ramsgard Thomsen
2nd Author
3rd Author
Degree
PhD
Year
2004
Number of Pages
530
University
University College London
Thesis Supervisor
Prof Peter Cook
Supervisor e-mail
Other Supervisor(s)
Prof Mel Slater
Language(s) of Thesis
English
Department / Discipline
The Bartlett School of Architecture
Languages Familiar to Author
English, Danish, German, French
URL where full thesis can be found
Keywords
Mixed Reality, embodied interfaces, event space, architecture
Abstract: 200-500 words
The thesis uncovers the spatiality of environments that merge physical and digital dimensions, Mixed Realities. In Mixed Reality the mediated, or virtual, is conceived as a co-present dimension augmenting or seamlessly integrating with the immediate perception of the physical surroundings. Mixed Reality seeks to enable the experience of the virtual on the same terms and with the same immediacy as the real. The project positions the question of Mixed Realities within the architectural tradition of thinking and designing space. Suggesting the term action based Mixed Reality, this thesis seeks to provide a model with which to explore a Mixed Reality condition assembled through the shared moment of action and interaction. The project employs a practice based methodology informing the design and implementation of three based Mixed Reality installations: the Periscope, I see what you hear and Spawn. These projects seek to explore and define the means by which a Mixed Reality space is constructed around the presence and actions of the user. Based around the making of embodied interfaces, the installation present an extended environment for action, where actions in the physical environment merge and combine with interactions in the digital dimension. Through the embodied interface users engages their body in a process of learning new embodied practices particular to the Mixed Reality condition. Here, the digital is cast as a parallel digital dimension affected by the presence and actions of the users. Action based Mixed Reality is the exploration of an event space, attaining its boundaries, dimensionality and modality from the continuously fluctuating potentiality for action.