visit the exhibit

Construct began work on The Difference Engine 3 fifteen months before the ZKM (the Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany) opened its doors to this installation. The project is an interactive internet-based museum installation which uses 3d technologies, image capture technologies, and electromechanical technologies. There are three main components to the project: (1) bridging between the real and virtual world,(2) avatars/identity, and (3) telerobotics.

(1) the bridge between the real and virtual
Visitors will be able to visit the museum in person and over the internet. Common to both worlds is a viewport or window into the other world. In the physical museum this viewport will be a modified laptop screen, and in the virtual museum it will be an abstract screen.

(2) avatars/identity
Visitors to both worlds will have an identity as an avatar in the virtual space. Real museum visitors will have a snapshot taken of their face which in turn is texture mapped to a piece of geometry representing their avatar. The virtual museum will, in effect, be a multi-user environment where avatars coexist from the real and virtual realm.

(3) telerobotics
The viewports common to both worlds can be moved along the x and y axis in order to explore the space in the other world. For example, when the internet visitor moves the virtual viewport the viewport in the physical museum will move as well. This direct response movement will create an immediacy to the presence of a visitor on the other side.

The virtual museum architecture was created as a tool to help visitors view the physical space differently. The virtual architecture presents otherwise invisible information about the physical space, such as measurements between column lines and dashed lines illustrating the structural grid of the physical building. In essence, the virtual museum becomes a prosthetic for viewing the physical museum with an analytical eye. Also, architectural animations, by way of moving partitions, constantly collapse and extend space to create liquid space- a fourth dimension of transient spatial relationships.