Levitrope
Abstract
Leviation is strongly related to the magic and the enchantment. Media Instruments in Edison’s age are developped to defy the gravity by the rotated visual images. Here is the artwork called “Levitrope”, this word stands for “lev(levitation)” and “trope(rotation)”. This media installation displays levitated metalic balls and they rotates on the wheel like structures. It reminds us our body and enbodiment of ourselves under the gravity. We envision these zero gravity kinetic sculpture will new media installation of Digital Nature Age.
Levitrope: gravity to feel physicality, computer nature.
Floating is a mysterious phenomenon. Because a unique situation where substances are fixed in the air under gravity makes us feel broken up by nature brought up under gravity. Therefore levitation has been incorporated into many magic, its mystique has fascinated people.
Levitation above the stage appears as a magical capability of a magician, floating that happens on its own side, and levitation without human intervention there, reminds the viewer strongly the physicality. This is because the contrast between our body under the control of gravity and the floating matter unleashed gravity makes our body strongly aware recursively.
This phenomenon can not occur in VR space making full use of HMD and display. Because there is no mass in the VR space, and floating objects exist as natural. Because our bodies are also dataized, rituals that paralyze the sense of leaning off the resolution and take a look at head-mounted displays and displays take away the contrast between leaning specificity and physicality.
Digital Nature Work evoking phisicality. Computer that we image The world of nature will definitely be the world where links with leaning physicality will be disconnected. The world that everything in this world seems to be free from the “current nature” of gravity can also be called “computer nature”. Therefore, we decided to make a theme based on the return to physicality by levitation, and the installation which seems to be normal, it makes the reminiscent of the future nature “under the cosmic gravity”.
Under the idea of the base to make several rotating bodies to levitate, we started the project under the name Levitrope (Levitrope). This coined word combining Levitation (floating) and Trope (rotation) is also a tribute to rotating media devices like Zoetrope and Kinematograph.
In the era of Edison, people have succeeded in cutting out a real world from nature by rotating images. The picture is the most successful virtual reality which is not to be mentioned. It cuts the time and space in our world into substantial visually and subjective pieces, releases gravity, and transcends distance barriers by fusing with telegraph. It is through this magnificent virtual reality device that we saw the liberation from different gravity and gravity in Apollo’s lunar arrival and Space Shuttle images. Through the ritual of seeing the display, I believe something that I do not see directly as reality, sometimes I believe it is fiction as computer graphics or special effects. This rebellion is the reality that image media brings, and therefore what it believes is important.
The computer nature that we believe transcends the distinction between substance and substance by accepting all phenomena that are our body and the land and ground as reality. Whether it is substantial or material, it is not a fiction but a reality. By omitting the ritual of seeing the display, everything that behaves as if it were magical acts to exist.
Levitrope expressed such computer nature as a work. Apparently it is made of a ball made of silver and a mirror finishing rotation mechanism, and its appearance cuts out the environment of the daily environment, the blue sky, the lawn and the baseball stadium, and continues to reflect. Light and moon and stars in the evening, bustle and green and blue sky in the day. The reality mirror image seemed to reflect our physicality beyond gravity.
Kotaro Omomo, Kenta Suzuki, Daitetsu Sato, Yoichi Ochiai
University of Tsukuba
Levitrope: 身体性を感じるための重力，計算機自然．
浮遊は神秘的な現象だ．なぜなら，重力下で空中に物質が固定されるという特異な状況は重力下で育まれた我々にとって，自然との決別を思わせるからだ．それゆえ浮揚は多くの奇術に取り入れられ，その神秘性が人を魅了してきた．
ステージの上の浮揚は奇術師の神秘的な能力として映るが，自分の側で起こる浮揚，そしてそこに人が介在しない浮揚は，鑑賞者に身体性を強烈に思い起こさせる．なぜなら，重力下で支配された自分の身体と，重力を解き放つ浮揚物の間の対比が，再帰的に自らの身体を強く意識させるからだ．
HMDやディスプレイを駆使したVR空間にはこの現象は生じえない．なぜなら，VR空間に質量はなく，浮揚物は当然のように存在する．自らの身体もデータ化されているから，解像度のずれが浮揚に対する感覚を麻痺させ，ヘッドマウントディスプレイやディスプレイを見るという儀式が，浮揚に対する特殊性と身体性との対比を取り去るからだ．
身体性を意識させる計算機自然的作品．我々のイメージする計算機自然の世界はきっと浮揚の身体性とのリンクが外れていく世界だろう．この世界のあらゆるものが重力という「現状の自然」から自由になったように見える世界が「計算機自然」ともいえる．それゆえ，浮揚による身体性への回帰，そしてそれが平常的に見えるインスタレーションによってその先の自然，「宇宙的な重力下」を思わせるというものをテーマに作ることにした．
浮揚する回転体をいくつも作る，というベースのアイディアのもと，Levitrope（レヴィトロープ）という名前でプロジェクトをスタートした．Levitation(浮遊)とTrope(回転)を合体させたこの造語は，ZoetropeやKinematographのような回転系メディア装置へのオマージュでもある．
エジソンの時代，回転するイメージによって人は自然から実質的な世界を切り出すことに成功した．映像は言わずもがな最も成功したバーチャルリアリティである．我々の世界にある時間と空間を，視覚的，そして主観的な実質的なコマに切り取り，重力を解き放ち，電信と融合することで距離の壁を超越した．我々がアポロによる月面到達やスペースシャトルの映像で異なる重力や重力からの解放を目にしたのも，この壮大なヴァーチャルリアリティ装置を通じてのことだ．ディスプレイを見る，という儀式を通じて，直接目にしていないものをときに現実として信じ込み，ときにコンピュータグラフィクスや特撮として虚構だと信じる．この排反性が映像メディアのもたらすリアリティであり，それゆえ何を信じるかが重要になる．
我々の信じる計算機自然は，我々の身体と地続きである全ての現象を現実として受け入れることで，実質と物質の区別を超越する．実質的か物質的かの違いこそあれ，それは虚構ではなく現実である．ディスプレイを見るという儀式を省くことで，まるで魔術的に振る舞うあらゆるものがに存在するようになる．
Levitrope（レヴィトロープ）は作品として，そういった計算機自然を表現した．外見上は銀で出来た球と鏡面仕上げの回転機構で出来ていて，その見た目は日常的な環境，青空と芝生と野球場という環境を切り取って映し続ける．夜には照明や月や星を，昼には喧騒と緑と青空を．その現実の鏡像は重力を超えて我々の身体性を映し出していたように見えた．
大桃耕太郎、鈴木健太、佐藤大哲、落合陽一
筑波大学
All visual and video documents are available for the media and press
(under CC2.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0).
Images are taken by Kenta Suzuki / University of Tsukuba (鈴木健太/筑波大学)
